


The Syncretist

by newredshoes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Artists, F/M, Gen, Stanford Era, William Blake - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-25
Updated: 2008-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-13 13:41:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series. John and Dean are perfectly capable of carrying on with their lives.</p><p>Syncretism is the attempt to reconcile disparate or contradictory beliefs, often with only partial success.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Syncretist

**I. Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. (Wm. Blake)**

The house party on Palmer Street was Jenn’s idea. How she heard about it, Dustin has no idea, but she invited him to come with some other people from the dorm, which was excuse enough for him. It didn’t turn out quite like he hoped. Most of the guys were older than him, juniors and seniors, and so while the freshmen girls had lots of fun, Dustin stood around, watched some beer pong, tried that, tried a Jell-O shot, and eventually decided to leave before midnight.

September is just starting to get chilly: he huddles into his Ohio University sweatshirt as he walks up Mill Street. Someone had mentioned a shortcut back to the dorm by cutting through between the Music Building and Siegfried Hall. Jenn has art classes at Siegfried, and she pointed it out to him once. He knows that somewhere there’s a steep set of stairs.

Across the parking lot behind the Lutheran church is a cluster of kilns. One of them rumbles quietly to itself. Dustin pauses nearby to get his bearings: Siegfried from the back looks way bigger than from the front. The main entrance, which is just one story, opens into a four- or five-story annex; a walkway connects the two halves of the building. Beneath that is an amphitheater: Dustin can see the outline of the steps in the half-light. He’s a little muddled from the beers and the Jell-O shot, but that seems like the right way to go.

The wind won’t let him be. It rattles through a tangle of dead vines and bramble that spills over a rough stone wall. Dustin starts to wonder if another way would have been better, but Jenn said this shortcut worked, and he’s going to trust her. He passes under the walkway, and stops to look up.

Every inch of the amphitheater is covered with art, chaotic, distorted figures in stark black and white. Words and symbols swim among the shapes, all of which look violent and fraught. Skeletal human figures with too many necks or too many limbs bend at impossible angles, weaving in and out of each other. Spears pierce empty eye sockets, bald-faced teeth clutch objects like dogs. The giant steps are painted with the same style, one design repeated over and over on each ledge. Dustin swallows. He’s not superstitious or anything, but the mural is giving him some serious creeps.

A dim light to the side of the painting flickers. He squints at the words cluttered between the figures. They look like they should be mystic and important. He sounds them out, the crowded letters swimming together. “This is the—generation of them that—seek thy face, O—Albion.”

Dustin blinks. Then he laughs, giddy and relieved. “What sort of dumb crap is that?” He pores over some of the other phrases, but none make any sense. _Shut not up my soul with the cynners. An Englecyn & his pit bull, Stickum. What this country needs is a good five cent maggot._ “Guy can’t even spell,” he says out loud, still smiling. This is exactly why he’s not in humanities. Does he feel dumb, getting spooked like that. He feels dumber that it only took one shot and some PBR to get him there.

He races up the steps dividing the amphitheater and turns to face the mural. “Sewing machines run by the microchips of Albion,” he reads from across the top. “Whatever, man!” His voice echoes beneath the archway.

One of the images is glowing. Dustin has time to realize this—and that his legs won’t move—before the brightness flares and, soundlessly, explodes.

*

Some other freshman finds him in a stairwell, and wakes the RA at 4:30 on a Sunday. Dustin is strung out or something. Everyone’s talking about it. He’s pressed into a corner, staring wide-eyed at nothing. All sorts of people come to try and help, and the RA warns that it’ll only upset him more, but Dustin doesn’t seem to notice. Even Jenn gets hauled out of bed, but she’s still drunk from the six beers she guzzled at the party, and the RA can only handle one substance-related crisis at a time.

“He was over at Palmer too?” he asks the crowd clustered at the doorway.

“Yeah,” supplies Amy, clutching bony elbows, “but he didn’t, like, _do_ anything. He’s not that kind of guy.”

“Albion,” Dustin mutters, running trembling hands up his arms.

“What?” The RA kneels in front of him. “What was that, Dustin? Come on, buddy, talk to me.”

Dustin’s eyes grow wider. “Albion Albion Albion.” His voice quavers.

“Do we need to call the hospital?” someone asks. The RA jams his fingers through his hair.

Dustin sniffles. “Come up hither. Albion, O…”

“Somebody get my cell,” says the RA. “It’s on my desk next to my computer.”

“Albion!” Dustin shrieks, and flattens himself on the floor. Everyone at the door jumps back. Dustin’s fingers clutch and seize on emptiness. The whole concrete stairwell echoes with his cries. “Shut not up my soul with the sinners! _Every thing hided by nakedness will be skinned!”_

   
  **II. There is nothing we can do about [the dead]; we cannot see more or less of them at will, and we can neither call them up nor banish them by our own efforts. (St. Theresa)**

John and Dean Winchester wait at opposite ends of the porch. John is on sentry at the railing. The Impala’s parked at an awkward angle at the end of a gravel drive. Dean sits slumped on the porch swing, eyes downcast. His lip is split and his face is a study in purple and black. Flinches accent all his movements. The house is an unremarkable ranch-style, hardly more than an outpost in an explosively green tract of wild. Not too far beyond, the hill takes a running leap into the tops of trees.

No breezes trouble the chimes and charms crowding the rim of the roof. John wipes the sweat off the sides of his nose and keeps watching. The cicadas and locusts put out wave after wave of unrelenting noise. John and Dean couldn’t have a conversation if they wanted to.

Down the road, a dog barks. John turns his head: a maroon Cadillac has paused at the head of the driveway. He doesn’t say a word to his son, just steps away from the railing and ventures out into the sunlight, his hands swinging easy at his side. The Cadillac idles a moment longer, then eases onto the gravel to box the Impala in. John keeps his distance while the engine sputters off.

A woman steps out of the driver’s seat, a sturdy lady with teased bangs and hiking boots. She carried three tattered shopping bags and a purse looped around her forearms. John steps forward. “You need any help with that?”

“No, I got it.” Her drawl is quick and precise, a river accent. She hitches the handles of her bags up her arms. “Awful long way to come out and get lost. Something I can do for you?”

“Are you Mindy Barnhart?”

She peers at the porch. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“My name’s John Winchester. That’s my son Dean.” He nods backward over his shoulder. “There was a lady down in Athens told me we could come to you. My boy here’s pretty shook up.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Mindy purses her lips. “I don’t do house calls. You want to get him to an ER, docs can take care of him at O’Blenness. You know where that is? I can tell you fastest way to get there from here.”

“I don’t need their help.”

“Then what’re you coming to me about?”

“He spent the night at the Ridges. Ran into some trouble there.”

Mindy cocks an eyebrow. “College pranking trouble? Kids can get up to plenty around that old creep show.” She weaves past him, toward her front door.

John follows a pace behind her. “You know we wouldn’t be here if it was just that.” He furrows his brow. “We’ve been waiting a while.”

Mindy piles her bags against the screen door. “I had things to do. I wasn’t expecting company.” She turns her attention to Dean, still slouched on the porch swing. He keeps his eyes fixed on her as she approaches, a whipped, wary look. She doesn’t blink. “Well, Dean. Camping out at an old mental hospital?”

“He can’t talk,” says John, before Dean can open his mouth. Dean drops his eyes to the torn knee of his jeans.

“No kidding?” Mindy snorts softly. “Those damn spooks.”

John waits, his head inclined toward her. “You can help him?”

She pauses. “Yeah, guess I’d better. C’mon in.”

Dean pulls himself to his feet, the porch swing wobbling beneath him. John beats them both to the door, and wordlessly takes up her shopping bags. They’re filled to overflowing with odds and ends that don’t add up—bits of leather, broken sticks, frayed ribbon and rope and bone.

The inside is frigid with air conditioning. Moving in from the still furnace of the outdoors sends goosebumps up John’s arms. Mindy leads them through a short hall peppered with framed pictures. John gets glimpses of other rooms: plaid fabric on oversized furniture, plants in the windows, photos and artifacts on the walls.

They file into the kitchen. “You got a nice house,” he remarks.

“Thank you,” says Mindy, shrugging off her jacket. She picks a few burrs from her pant leg. “You guys just have a seat, I’ll be with you in a minute.” She strolls back down the hallway, out of sight.

Dean sinks into one of the wooden chairs bookending a small round table. It creaks beneath him when he leans back; he tries to settle on his forearms instead. John stays on his feet, attentive. There’s a walk-in pantry set into one of the walls, the door half-open. A bundle of dried sweet annie hangs in a far corner. The fragrance cuts the chemical cold odor of the A/C.

John straightens the placemat in front of the empty seat opposite Dean. Mindy bustles back into the room. “You’re not the first hunters I ever patched up, you know. What brings you?”

John sets both hands on the back of the chair. “We finished a job in Lucasville, got a late start out.” The corners of his mouth turn down. “We weren’t planning on more than an overnight here. We should be in West Virginia by now.”

“Lemme guess, that roc near Wheeling?” Mindy swings open the pantry and vanishes inside. “You’re outta luck, someone got it already.”

“Really?” John shifts his weight. “When?”

“Oh man, three, four weeks ago, maybe. That thing’s old news. You’re looking to go that way in particular, though, I heard of a few other jobs need doing.”

He glances at a weaving hanging from the wall, almost a dreamcatcher but made of rushes and shards of glass. “You hear a lot in these parts?”

“I know everything there is worth knowing in the tri-state area. By the way, you want anything while I’m up?”

John hooks his thumb into one of his belt loops. “No, I’m good, thanks.” Dean tries to clear his throat, but only achieves a dry wheeze.

Mindy emerges, six glass jars in the crooks of her arms. She plunks them on the table in front of Dean, who jerks back to avoid her. Each jar is different, filled with something dry or ground. “So,” she says, looking from Dean to John, “why is it you caught some trouble at the old hospital?”

“You know kids.” John spares a glance at his son. Dean is busy studying the herbs on the ceiling. “Athens is a hunter’s tourist trap. Dean wanted to cowboy up and see your famous insane asylum.”

“The Ridges?” says Mindy. “What for? That old place’s been cleaned out for years.”

John’s mouth thins. “Not clean enough, apparently.” He readjusts his grip on the back of the empty chair. “I don’t care what he does, so long as the work gets done. He calls me 5:30 this morning, and I had to go pick him up.”

“Dean, open those for me, would you? I can’t always get those tops.” Mindy doesn’t wait for him to start; she snags a kettle off the stovetop and holds it under the faucet. “He couldn’t talk?”

“I knew where he was.”

“Hmm.”

John leans forward onto the chair, shoulders hunched, watching her. “So what exactly is it you do?”

“I work at the hospital. I’m an ER nurse.”

“And when you’re not?”

“I keep up wards.” She chokes off the faucet. “It’s no lie, Athens is damn haunted. People lay protections around the county, I make sure they keep intact. If they’re broke or ripped, I fix ‘em or replace ‘em. JoAnn Fabrics won’t do you better for arts and crafts. Lets me talk to lots of people too.” She reaches into another cupboard. “Something I used to do with my daughter.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” Mindy shrugs. “She’s long gone. No girl in her right mind wants to stick around this place. Still, I like the postcards.” With a grunt, Dean pops the lid off the last jar. Mindy returns to the table with a mug in hand and sets it in front of him. The smiling, disembodied head of Daffy Duck provokes a scowl, affronted and amused. It’s the first time all morning he looks like somebody’s kid. Mindy smirks, fetches a tea egg and a set of measuring spoons, and sits in the empty seat. “So, you here from Kansas?”

“Originally.”

“I don’t know how you handle that flatness. It’d drive me nuts.” She heaps liberal spoonfuls from each jar into the strainer. “North of Lancaster, country all runs together for me.”

John watches her dose out the tea mix. “You travel enough, it does that anyway.”

“There’s a town called Winchester near here,” Mindy mentions, tapping the spoon on the rim of the jar. “You been there?”

“No, that’s one we haven’t gotten to yet.” John glances at his son. “We’ll have to keep that in mind.”

The kettle begins to shriek. Mindy brings it back to the table. She fills the Daffy Duck mug and sets the kettle on a corkboard coaster. “I’ll tell you when it’s ready to drink. Bring it with you: we’ll go in the living room.”

John steps aside. “How long before he’ll be better?”

“Twenty minutes, maybe, after he’s finished it all.” She twists the lids back onto the jars. “Why, you need to hit the road?”

John rolls one shoulder, almost a shrug. “If that roc’s been taken care of, maybe you can point us toward something else.”

Dean grimaces at the mug. His hands cover most of the face but the bill still protrudes out through his fingers. Vapor billows up from the surface of the tea. Dean is slow, and still stiff from his hurts. John and Mindy stroll away; he follows.

   
  **III. I have a great ambition to know everything. (Wm. Blake)**

Cassie’s phone rings three times before Becca picks up. “It’s after nine,” Cassie says first. “Are you guys coming or what?”

An uncomfortable pause promises nothing good. “Look, Cassie, I’m really sorry,” says Becca, and Cassie can just see her standing there with one hand clutching at her necklace. “I don’t think Molly’s in any shape to go out.”

Cassie leans against her doorframe. “We’ve got six weeks before there’s more school. No one’s going to care if she doesn’t look like a model.”

“Todd called,” hisses Becca, like that answers everything, and Cassie lets her forehead bump against the wall.

“What happened?”

“You hear how she’s not crying?” Becca whispers. “She locked herself in the bathroom for like an hour. I only just got her to have some ice cream. I don’t think Casa would be a good idea.”

Cassie pinches the bridge of her nose.

“I’m really sorry,” Becca repeats, all earnestness. “Maybe you can find someone else to hang out with? I know we all said we’d go out when the quarter was over, but I really don’t think I should leave Molly alone like this.”

Cassie manages not to sigh. This is the fourth Molly meltdown this year. “You want me to come over?” she says, as a gesture.

“No! No no, you don’t have to do that. I think she just needs, like, you know. Some cooldown. You should definitely go out, though.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll totally make up for it when we all get back, okay?”

Cassie nods. “Yeah, definitely. Tell Molly to feel better, and not to listen to that jerk, okay?”

She hangs up, and presses the phone to her mouth. This should be a group celebration: their last fall quarter is finished, and her journalism degree is officially in the bag. No matter what goes down tonight, Cassie figures she’s owed a drink. She’s pissed at Todd but not enough to stay in.

Scrolling through her contacts on her cell proves a frustrating exercise in remembering who’s still got finals tomorrow. She heads out into the wet November chill by herself. Her tumble-down house just off East State Street isn’t five minutes from uptown. Athens is lousy with bars, and her people-watching venues could do with a shake-up.

The Union is all low ceilings and strings of colored lights. It’s not a dive, but it’s untidy enough to feel exciting. A show in the space upstairs is deafening even through the walls. It adds to the pre-break surrealism: tomorrow she sleeps in nice and long, and then catches a ride the two hours to the airport in Columbus. She settles down at the bar and orders a hard cider. In twenty-four hours she’ll be home, her dad going off on local politics and her mom telling him to get over it and eat some pie, enjoy this visit from their daughter, for pity’s sake.

She doesn’t see him until he’s at her elbow, shouldering through to wave down a bartender. Big hands catch her attention first: silver ring, leather cord at the wrist. She traces up the arm: leather jacket, collar protecting the back of his neck. By the time she gets to his face he notices she’s staring. He cocks an eyebrow. “Hi.”

She grins. “Hi yourself.”

He comes off as more of the Smiling Skull Saloon type. Maybe he does the Union on alternate Tuesdays, just to get classy. As soon as he grins, crooked and sudden, it stops mattering. “This doesn’t seem like your kind of digs,” he starts, and Cassie bursts out laughing. He knits his brow, but the smile stays. “What?”

“All right,” she chuckles. “You I’ll let hit on me.”

The guy leans on his forearms, hunching over the counter. “You seem awfully sure that that was my next move.”

“Was it?”

The corners of his eyes crinkle. “Why ruin the surprise?”

She laughs again. “Are you a regular?”

“Nah. Just came to see the show tonight. It’s _awesome,_ by the way.” He seems distressingly genuine in his enthusiasm.

Cassie lifts her bottle and pulls a face. “It’s a hair metal tribute band.”

“Yeah, and?”

“I’m just saying, awesome is relative, and it’ll be a cold day in Hell before we get Motown here.” Her own smile flashes, without her permission. “Is there a problem with that?”

He shakes his head. “There’s just no curing some people. For instance.” He smirks. “What the hell are you drinking?”

She holds her bottle of cider close to her chest. “You got a problem with Woodchuck?”

“I just think you should have something better. Come on.” He waves down the barkeep. “What do you say to some shots? You seem like the shots type.”

Cassie tips her head toward him. “Oh, you can read a stranger that well.”

That cocksure grin makes a reappearance. “I’ve got a way with people.”

Under the pink neon lights, she can’t tell what color his eyes are. “Yeah,” she mutters, “I bet you do."

“What was that?”

Cassie takes in the whole effect: the stubble on his chin, the roving eye, the easy cheer. He’s not here for long either. “You’re right.” She sets the bottle on the counter. “This isn’t my kind of digs.”

He doesn’t back away. “So that’s a no on the shots?”

She lifts her coat off the back of her chair. “That’s a yes on take a walk with me.”

He follows. “What’s your name?” she asks, once they’re out on the street.

“Dean,” he says, and that’s all.

She hugs her elbows in the cold. “I’m Cassie.”

“Hi,” Dean says, and she smiles.

“Hi.”

It’s the last night she’s in town for the next month and a half, and what the hell, you’re only young once. Cassie turns off her phone and takes him home with her. Dean is all muscle and scar tissue. She throws her head back and laughs low in her throat at his ridiculous porn-talk. She thinks he’s in on the joke.

The light is low in her bedroom, but she finds tender places on his bare skin. Bruises blossom across his side and his shoulders. “Jesus,” she murmurs. “What happened?”

He twists, and pulls her toward him. “What, you’re worried I can’t keep up?”

She isn’t.

Dean wears a necklace that keeps knocking against her chest. The pendant is heavy and pointed—more than once she tries to slip it off him. No matter what her distraction, he takes her hands in his and puts his mouth somewhere else. The trouble’s not worth missing out on the rest.

When she wakes up alone in the morning, she’s a little pleased with herself. She’s never done a one-night stand before, and as an experiment, it came off pretty well. She treats herself to a long hot shower, and lounges in her bathrobe for another hour, because she can. Past that, though, it’s time to get ready, so Cassie gets dressed and starts to pack for going home.

   
  **IV. I traveld thro’ a Land of Men, A Land of Men & Women too, And heard & saw such dreadful things, As cold Earth wanderers never knew. (Wm. Blake) **

No way Tara wants to be here, tramping through the English department at quarter to nine on a Thursday. Bill and Kelly are somewhere in Ellis Hall, and Kelly was going to give her a ride home, except Tara suspects they’re too busy sucking face to remember they were supposed to meet her twenty minutes ago. She stomps more slush away from her shoes. Nothing in Athens is far enough from anything else to truly justify driving, but it’s dark and it’s winter and she just wants to be back at her dorm room. Her physics TA has a quiz for them in the morning. This is her major: Tara wants to do well. Kelly is going to _owe_ her for this.

She climbs her third flight of stairs, willing herself to not get peevish. “Optics is the study of light,” she mutters, letting herself onto the new floor. “Its basis is the interaction between light and matter.” She finds herself in a darkened hall, lit only by a few flickering exit signs. Warrens of professors’ offices branch off either side of the corridor. “Guys?” she calls out. “Kelly? Bill?” Her voice echoes off the marble floors. She sighs. “Damn it.”

Tara takes the last flight two steps at a time. “A dispersive prism will decompose white light into a spectrum,” she pants. “The visible spectrum is red orange yellow green blue indigo violet. I can’t believe I’m enough of a chump to still be looking for her.” She stops on the landing at the top of the stairwell and tugs at the door handle.

It sticks.

“Oh, come on,” she grumbles, and pulls again, harder this time.

The door shudders and, with a weary groan, swings toward her. Tara covers her nose with one gloved hand. The air is stale and dusty, carrying with it the vague odor of rot and droppings.

The space beyond is large and open, but somewhere inside is a light.

Tara swallows. She hesitates at the door, peering in. The light is thin but steady, a soft white glow that brushes against the edges of a vast unseen shape.

She ventures through. The door stays open behind her. The fourth floor of Ellis Hall turns out to be an abandoned auditorium, the curve of its domed roof only visible through inference. “Whoa,” she breathes. She makes her way down the aisle of abandoned seats. “Hello?” she calls. “Am I alone? I think I’m alone.”

She cranes her neck to scan the ceiling and walls. She’s not the first to find this place: a lone bit of graffiti holds court above her.

In the space of a single instant, the light intensifies. “There is no use in education,” a voice sighs in her ear. No breath breezes over her skin. “I hold it wrong.”

“Oh God!” She whips around. The auditorium is empty of people, but a figure is standing before her, a human outline burning bright as filaments. “Get away from me!” she yells. Her heel bumps against a cold chalkboard. The figure simply hovers; it makes no move against her.

“It is the great sin,” it continues, in a calm and soothing voice. “It is eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

“You keep back,” she snarls, even as her mind races with photons and biology and men of science and reason.

The figure flickers where it stands. The next moment, it’s close enough to touch, trapping her against the chalkboard. “O human imagination,” it murmurs. “This is Jerusalem in every man.” Tara’s pupils shrink to dots against the glare of it.

White light blooms from within the shining figure. Tara never makes it to her physics quiz.

 

 **V. Spirits are Lawful but not Ghosts. (Wm. Blake)**

Mindy’s hustle down the halls of O’Blenness Memorial Hospital slows considerably as soon as she catches sight of the waiting room.

“John Winchester,” she booms, “you are _not_ an urgent page. Just what do you think you’re doing dropping in on me on the job?”

John is already on his feet, the snow hardly melted in his hair. Dean leaves the nurse at the intercom fluttering in his wake. “Hi, Mindy,” John says, dipping his chin a touch.

Mindy glares at the girl, who slinks back into her station, before turning her attention to the men. “That isn’t gonna work. Your charm doesn’t impress me, mister. Six whole months and not a word from either of you?” She taps her wrist. “You got two minutes, I’ve got a patient needs his catheter removed.”

John claps his hands in front of him. “We need a place to stay.”

“Highlander Motel, out by Larry’s Dawg House. Not that far from here. I can even point you.”

John smiles, almost languid. “That’s not what we mean.”

“I know what you mean. I don’t run a roadhouse.”

His eyes sweep the waiting room, but everything else is easy and still. “We could make it worth your while.”

Mindy crosses her arms. “No, I don’t need the trouble, thanks. You guys always wind up bringing your work home with you.”

“How’s your car?” interjects Dean.

She furrows her brow at him. “What?”

“Your car,” he presses. “She still got that shudder when you switch gears?”

She unfolds her arms and rests one hand on her hip. “I can’t believe you remember that. You saying you wanna fix it for me?”

“He knows his way around an engine,” says John, his voice rumbling.

That gives her pause. Mindy looks between the two. “How long?”

John shrugs. “Couple of days. You won’t even know we’re there.”

After a moment, she glances down at her watch. “Look, I’m off at three. You remember the way back to my place?”

“We found it the first time.”

“Right. You be there at three, we’ll talk more then.” She eyes them both. “I ain’t said yes yet.”

John’s grin makes Mindy wants to punch him a little. “Don’t you have a man with a catheter to see to?”

“Get on with you.” She spins on her heel, and catches an RN clutching her clipboard to her chest, just staring. “Don’t you have a hospital to work at?” she barks. Somewhere behind her, one of the Winchesters laughs.

*

“I’ve come to a conclusion,” Dean says.

John flips open the battered cigar box and hands him a health inspector’s badge. “What’s that?”

“February sucks,” he announces. “We could be anywhere, it’d be disgusting. We could be in Phoenix or San Diego or—” Abruptly, he bows his head. John glances at the passenger seat, but Dean’s just studying the fake badge. “Anyway. How is there never work in Florida now? Every February, we’re somewhere and it’s gross.”

John eyes him for a second. “Glad you got that off your chest?”

Dean sniffs. “Yeah, I’m good now.”

The corners of his mouth quirk. “Okay, Agent Jones. Ready to work?”

Dean curls his lip. “Did you even see that movie? You’re older. I’m Smith, you’re Jones.”

John squints out at the office in front of them. “Couldn’t Tommy Lee pretty much kick Will Smith’s ass?”

Dean is forced to give this consideration. “Okay, so maybe—"

John shoves the cigar box in the glove compartment and opens his door. “Nope, too late to argue now.”

The building manager at Carriage Hill Apartments is called Tommy DeVore. He’s a narrow, anxious man with a mustache, glasses and an ugly sweater. His office is claustrophobic and dim, a combination born of old lights and fake wood paneling. He has been in charge of the day-to-day affairs of the complex for three and a half years.

John and Dean settle into the leasing office’s uncomfortable chairs. DeVore rests one skinny ankle on his knee and heaves a sigh. “All this is in the papers, and county records, so I’m not telling you anything your agency shouldn’t already know.”

“We understand,” says Dean, uncapping a pen. “We’re just here to follow up for the state board.”

John leans on the armrests of his chair. “This all started about three years ago, correct?”

DeVore nods, not looking at them. “The first accident was Mrs. Pasaribu, that March. I’d only been here a couple months then. She died in her unit, having a baby.”

“Pasaribu…” John frowns down at his notepad. “Can you spell that for me?” He takes down the letters. “What sort of name is that?”

“Batak. She and her husband were Indonesian graduate students. I remember her bracelets.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “She was in botany, and I think he was studying economics.”

“And the baby,” prompts Dean. “They lost the baby as well?”

“Yes.” DeVore drops his eyes. “It was terrible. She went into labor very fast, and the weather was bad, and they couldn’t get an ambulance up that hill in time. The baby came out strangled.” His fingers twitch; he swallows again. “She bled to death.”

Dean’s pen hovers over his pad. “You seem to remember this pretty vividly.”

DeVore’s eyes widen. “I was the one trying to get her the ambulance. Hell of a lot of blood. We had to replace the whole carpet and floor.”

John skims his notes. “What happened to Mr. Pasaribu?”

“Oh, he left, before his lease was up.” He uncrosses his legs, an ungainly process of navigating a desk too small for him.

“What about the others?” Dean presses. “Tell us about some of the other accidents.”

“Well. Ah. Right.” DeVore leans back in his chair, which creaks, and threads his fingers together. “All in the interests of full disclosure, of course. Though I want you aware that this is all _very unusual._ None of this reflects on the great majority of our properties at Carriage Hill. These are extreme cases that we want fixed and prevented for the future, and I wouldn’t be telling you some of this if you weren’t public safety officers.”

John bows his head. “Understood.”

DeVore begins bouncing his knee. “Three more women that I know of have miscarried. One infant was found mauled in her cradle—they thought maybe a dog broke in and did that. We’ve had two incidents where men have had serious run-ins with our radiators and, ah.” He squirms in his seat. “And of course you know about poor Charlie.”

John scratches a spot beneath his chin. “These victims—were they Indonesian too?”

“What? No.” DeVore shakes his head. “No no. Irene Olusegun was Nigerian, Edmund Bai was from Taiwan… Candy Miller was from Vinton County.” He nods, emphatically. “We have all sorts here, local and international. It’s one of Carriage Hill’s attractions.”

“And the accidents have all happened in the same place.”

“Yes, Building 2. You don’t think it’s mold, do you?”

John and Dean exchange glances. “Mold?” Dean repeats.

“I’ve heard it can do weird things to your brain and your muscles and nerves and things.” DeVore blinks earnestly. “I’ve been doing a lot of research. Fighting that mess, that could get expensive.”

Dean turns his face sideways, fist covering his mouth. John keeps looking DeVore right in the eye. “We can’t say for sure just yet. We’ll have a better idea once we’ve seen the site firsthand.”

“Of course! Of course.” DeVore slides open a desk drawer with one brisk movement and rifles through until he finds some keys. “Follow me.”

The police have already combed and cleaned the unit where the body was discovered. DeVore doesn’t enter the apartment, once he’s opened it. “I’ll just leave you two here.” He stands in the stairwell outside the unit, wringing his hands. “If you don’t have any more questions, you know where to find me.” Dean watches him hurry away before reaching inside his jacket for the EMF meter.

John is already prowling the floor, not touching anything. “What’re you thinking?” Dean asks, as the EMF squeals and hisses in his hands. The apartment, stains still in the carpeting, hasn’t yet been cleared of Charlie Blankenship’s possessions. A lumpy couch, an old card table, an enormous plywood entertainment center. Some unframed posters on the wall. A scraggly potted tree in one corner by a closed window.

“I’m not sure yet.” John drops his hand from over his mouth. “This thing is indiscriminate. Could be anything we’re dealing with.”

Dean spreads his hands. “Guy could be lying about the history of the place. Think there’s something he’s not telling us?”

“Maybe Mindy will know.” He studies a bloodstain high on the wall. “How long before we meet her?”

Dean pushes back his sleeve. “Four hours.”

John snorts softly, then stops and knits his brow. “Hey. You smell that?”

Dean switches the meter off, and takes several experimental whiffs. “What am I looking for?”

“Like a perfume. Something flowery.”

They stand there, trying to place it. “Damn,” John grumbles. “What is that?”

“Smells like…” Dean’s mouth twists. “Freaking Bath & Body Works.”

John lifts an eyebrow. “Really.”

“Yeah.” Dean suddenly has the good grace to look uncomfortable. “You know.”

“I don’t.” John spares him the smirk and just shakes his head. “You think there’s one in town?”

“Could be.” Dean clears his throat. “Why, you think our man-mauling, baby-hating killer goes heavy on the body butter?”

John pins him with a look. “You think you could pick this scent out in a store?”

Dean opens his mouth, ready to protest. John doesn’t blink. Dean’s expression sours, but he slumps his shoulders and heaves a sigh. “I saw it on a sign at that mall near the Wal-Mart.”

“Okay, then.” John glances around the apartment again. “Let’s move out.”

*

“We bought you something,” says John as soon as Mindy shuts the front door behind them.

“Did you? Can’t say you shouldn’t have.” Dean holds out the paper bag by its handles. Mindy eyes it. “What is that?”

John rolls his shoulders, hands in his pockets. “Open it and find out.”

She dips into the bag and pulls out a plastic bottle. She frowns at the violently tangerine liquid inside. “‘Island Frangipani’ shower gel?”

“We went to Carriage Hill and smelled that in the apartment where Charlie Blankenship was killed.” John’s eyes flick onto hers. “You know of anything might leave an odor like that?”

“Aside from your typical teenage girl? No, nothing.” She pauses. “You looking for a creature?”

Dean shakes his head. “No way. EMF was going nuts.”

Mindy makes a noncommittal noise, studying the bottle again. “Well. You know where to start looking?”

John nods. “I got some ideas.”

She purses her lips, wry. “Next you’re gonna ask me if I know anything about those apartments. Don’t say it yet, I’m thinking.” After a moment, she looks up. “I got a spare bedroom and a fold-out couch. Absolutely no more than a week, you keep out of trouble with the law, and I expect a little help from you two for my things. That sound fair?”

Both Winchesters visibly relax. “More than fair enough.” John holds out his hand. “Thanks a lot, Mindy.”

Dean nods. “Yeah, thanks a lot.”

She waves them both off. “Hey, well, winters are lonely. Sometimes this house is just too big, you know?”

“I have an idea.” John glances at his son. “You want the bed?”

“It’s my daughter’s room,” Mindy warns. “Might not be all to your tastes.”

Dean looks between them. “She’s not into unicorns or anything, is she?”

“Can you put up with the Dixie Chicks on the walls?”

Dean grins. “I can live with that.”

John clears his throat. “Go get our things out of the car.” Dean, unrepentant, slips past and out the front door without his coat on. John turns back to Mindy. “I picked up some things before we came over. Where can I spread out with ‘em?”

She leads him into the living room. “Coffee table all right?”

“That’s great.”

Mindy settles down in her armchair next to the big front window, her basket of odds and ends at her feet. When Dean tramps back in, an olive duffle slung over each shoulder, John’s already piled an array of newspapers and books on the table. Dean drops one bag next to the couch; when John doesn’t look up, he nods at Mindy and heads toward the bedroom. The door thumps shut. Mindy sets a small plastic tub of beads on her side table and takes up the frame for one of the woven wards.

The quiet is short-lived. A muffled cacophony of guitars rumbles through the walls. John laughs to himself. “Black Sabbath,” he explains. “Heard that tape one too many times when he was fifteen, told him I’d torch his entire collection next time he played it in the car.”

Mindy smirks, her fingers working complex knots with the waxed leather. “With my daughter it was that Alanis Morissette howling day in and day out. Made me long for the days when it was just the latest Disney soundtrack.”

He rests his chin in the palm of his hand. “Yeah, I never had that particular problem.”

She glances toward the spare bedroom. “Dean seems like a good boy.”

“He is,” John agrees, almost a growl. “He’s a good hunter too.”

She threads a bead onto the cord, which she loops back over the frame. “How old is he?”

“Twenty-three.”

She ties another knot. “Amanda’s a little younger. Nineteen this past October first.”

John examines his articles again. “Where’s she? At college?”

Mindy snorts. “No, girl says she’s got better things to be doing.” She bites back a smile. “Dean didn’t want to go to school?”

“No.” John doesn’t look up. “He’s happy with what he does.”

“Well.” She nods, and picks out a carved bone bead. “That’s good.”

Neither of them speak again, absorbed in their tasks. Dean’s tape runs out, and he doesn’t emerge until dinnertime, yawning and scrubbing at his eyes. Mindy and John are both just where he left them.  
   
 

  **VI. If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. (Wm. Blake)**

Cassie is losing this game of tug-of-war. She tries again to twist out of Lauren’s grip. “Okay, seriously, how many times have you seen this movie now?”

Lauren plants her feet and lean backward. “This isn’t about me. _You_ still haven’t seen it. I swear to God, you’re going to like it on a big screen.”

She digs her heels into the rug, without much traction or success. “I just have to ask—does it change any of the twelve times you’ve been back? Are there ever new scenes or places that just break out in improv?”

“It’s just been eight, thank you very much. Come on! Don’t be such an unbeliever.”

“Hobbits? Little men with furry feet?”

“Strapping men on horseback. Aragorn with battle sweat.” She stops pulling, but doesn’t let go of her hands. “Cassie, you’ve been typing for the past four days straight. I’m shocked you can even feel me pulling. Your thesis is just as stuck today as it was eight hours ago. Come on, you need out of the house.” She tugs again.

The great heresy of Athens, Lauren often observes, is that the nearest movie theater is fifteen minutes away, in a cornfield near Nelsonville. They have to cross two lanes of oncoming highway traffic to turn into the parking lot. “Here we go,” Lauren sighs, with grudging fondness. “Seizure’s Palace.”

Movies 10 is a white cinderblock structure whose idea of Hollywood grandeur is a wraparound marquee of frantically flashing lights. Inside the main lobby, one pimply teenager lounges next to the popcorn machine; another is staring, bored, at a customer craning his neck up at the menu.

Cassie grabs Lauren’s arm and skids to a halt. “Oh God.”

“What?” Lauren frowns, puzzled. “You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”

Even beneath his bulky leather jacket, the man’s shoulders are broad. His hair is too short, and even from behind the jeans are shabby. Cassie watches his fingers tap arrhythmically on the counter. “Yeah,” he says at last, “gimme a large, with butter, a large Pepsi and a bag of Twizzlers.”

“Cassie, what?” Lauren hisses.

Cassie pulls her back against a wall of framed posters. The teenagers have to make a new batch of popcorn, so Cassie hustles Lauren past the ticket collector and into the theater. “What was all that?” she asks, bemused.

Cassie rakes a hand through her hair. “I kind of had a thing with him this one time.”

Comprehension dawns on Lauren’s face. “Really? You’re sure it’s him? I thought you said it was awesome!”

“Yeah, but we weren’t ever supposed to _see_ each other again!” Cassie surveys the dim theater, peppered with a handful of true believers. The country music playing over the speakers seems wasted on them. She points to an open space near the center. “There, let’s sit there.”

“So wait,” Lauren whispers, shrugging off her coat. “Who is this guy?”

Cassie slouches down in the chair. “His name’s Dean. I met him at the Union.”

“Wait, seriously? The Union?”

“It was the last night of the quarter! I wanted to try someplace new.”

“This is going to get you in trouble when you’re an intrepid gumshoe reporter.” Lauren checks her watch. “Is he a student?”

Cassie shrugs. “I haven’t seen him around.”

“So, what?” Lauren’s mouth twists. “Is he… you know. Local?”

“I don’t know.” Cassie puts a hand to her forehead and laughs. “I don’t know anything about him. It was just this thing that happened once. I don’t know how to be cool about this part.”

She leans close, conspiratorial. “I hope it was worth it.”

Cassie bites her lip. “Not much for conversation, but you should see him from the front.” They dissolve into giggles. A middle-aged man in front of them turns and glares.

“Okay,” wheezes Lauren, standing up. “I’m going to venture out for concessions. You want anything?”

Cassie checks the display on her cell phone. “The movie starts in like five minutes.”

“Please. You think I haven’t memorized these previews too?”

Cassie stays wedged into her seat. “I’ll steal your popcorn if you get it.”

Lauren tosses off a salute. “You got it.”

Cassie twists in her seat to watch her go.

He’s there, three rows back, dirty boots propped up on the seat in front of him. Of course he is.

She sinks down again, her heart pounding. She hears him — it has to be him — slurp on his drink and exhale. Halfway through the first preview, Lauren slides back in. “He’s here!”

“Don’t remind me,” Cassie snaps, reaching for the popcorn.

“What kind of reporter are you? I was totally not prepared for how _hot_ he is!” She makes an appreciative noise in her throat. “White trash beautiful, oh my God!”

Cassie elbows her; popcorn spills in Lauren’s lap. “Are you going to talk at me through this whole movie?”

Lauren stays quiet for all of one trailer. “You should talk to him after. You should say hi.”

“No.”

She leans in. “He should come out with us!”

“Lauren, _no._ Just drop it, okay?”

The next three hours are an exercise in forced interest. Dean turns out to be a talkative theatergoer, punctuating each bit of choreographed violence with whoops of encouragement and, inexplicably, carrying on a running monologue every time Mikey from _The Goonies_ is onscreen. The talking trees and Nordic warriors and little furry-footed men are an absolute solace in comparison. “We don’t have to wait for something after the credits or anything, do we?” she asks, once the screen fades to black.

“No, we’re all good.” Lauren cracks her neck. “What did you think? Did you like it?”

“Yeah,” she allows, because Lauren will actually be crushed if she says otherwise, “it was pretty good.”

“Oh my god!” Lauren’s face lights up. “And can you believe we have to wait until December for the next one?”

Cassie groans as she stands. “I forgot, now we have to have the frame-by-frame dissection.” Lauren pushes her; Cassie laughs. “Come on, let’s go get some food.”

It’s not actually in Lauren’s nature to engineer moments like this. But she’s looking back at Cassie, and not where she’s going, and as he steps into the aisle, she walks right into Dean. She manages a short “Whoa!” before all three of them freeze and stare at each other.

“Sorry,” blurts Lauren, wide-eyed.

“It’s no problem,” says Dean. “Hey,” he continues. Half an instant later, he smiles. “Cassie.”

“Hi,” she says, jamming both hands into her back pockets. They all stand and look at each other for another infinitely awkward moment. The faux-Bjork credit music rolls in the background. She clears her throat. “Didn’t expect to see you around here.”

“I hadn’t had a chance to catch this one yet.” He points, at nothing in particular. "I got dragged to opening night for the first one. But hey, what’re you gonna do?”

“Right, right.” She eyes Lauren. “We… were just going to go get some pizza.”

“Yeah?” Dean glances between them. The lights are still dim, and she realizes she never found out the color of his eyes. “Well hey, the night’s still young—can I interest you ladies in hitting the bars?”

Cassie manages a tight smile and reaches for Lauren’s elbow. “We’d better get going, actually. This was our one thing out and I’ve got class in the morning.”

Dean’s teeth flash in the thin projector light. “Come on, what’s this? I always heard this place was a party school.”

She swallows. “Yeah, not that I’d argue, but we’d really better be on our way.”

He cants his head, but doesn’t move any closer. “Okay. See you around.”

Lauren smiles, a bit loopy-looking. “Bye.”

He lets them pass in front of him; Cassie hustles them out. “He seems nice!” Lauren hisses as they barrel into the cold night air.

“That was _weird,”_ Cassie insists, hurrying toward the car. “I need pizza _and_ beer. That was _weird.”_

Lauren climbs in and leans to unlock the passenger door. “Fact: that boy was totally after you. Why not hit it again?”

She snorts as she buckles in. “Yeah, me and my carpal tunnel.”

Somewhere behind them, another engine snarls and roars in the lot. Cassie twists to see a long black muscle car shark past them. They line up behind it: out of habit, Cassie takes in the model—Chevrolet, Kansas plates, hair metal thundering through the speakers. “Oh my god, this town,” she sighs, and leans back against the headrest. “Sometimes I cannot graduate fast enough.”

Lauren shakes her head, grinning. “I can’t believe you had a one-night stand with a redneck you met at the Union.”

“Oh, get over it. I’m not sorry.” She massages her temple. “But it’s just jarring, you know? I’ve got one context for the guy, and that’s great, but then he shows up when you’re completely not expecting it and he’s totally different.” She stares out at the shoulder of the highway. “It’s like… going to a restaurant and having this great meal one time, and then you go back and they serve up those weird nachos with the plastic orange cheese that you get at the city pool.”

Lauren shoots her a withering look. “Please tell me that’s not what passes for good writing at the j-school.” She turns her attention back to the road. “You should have invited him out with us. He could take us around, show us the sights of wonderful Athens County.”

“Lauren, you can call him a hick or you can mack on him, but you can’t do both.”

“Why not?” She drops her voice orc-low. “Manflesh.”

Cassie rolls her eyes. “How is it we even get along?” Lauren laughs, and reaches for the radio dial.

 

 **VII. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea with a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. (Julia Ward Howe)**

“This part is so not my favorite,” Dean grumbles, kneeling in front of the lock.

“Stay focused,” says John, low under his breath. He scans the outdoor metal stairwell. All the windows in the other buildings are dark and drawn. “You hear anything?” he murmurs.

The lock clicks beneath Dean’s pick. “We’re in.”

John nods, and points with two fingers: silent Marine mode. Dean swings the door open and creeps in. John follows, one hand pressed against his pocket.

They leave the lights off. Dean knows his part: he prowls, taking his steps slow and careful through the apartment, in and out of sight. The kitchenette has a good view of the space. John stops to sweep the floor with his eyes.

Dean returns, his arms spread. _Nothing, no sign._

John taps beneath his eye. _Wait for it._ He flags Dean back toward the bedrooms. Dean goes. John glances at the clock on the microwave oven: quarter past one. Could be a long night.

He leans against the counter and listens. No sounds from Dean. When something’s due to happen, they’ll know. Charlie screamed. That’s how the neighbors knew to look in on him.

The leaves on the potted tree by the window rustle. Something delicate wafts by: John sniffs after it—frangipani. The rustling becomes something else, the sound of cloth brushing against skin. The air has warmed up, gone soft and moist and heavy. John ventures out of the kitchenette, toward the living room. The flowery odor grows stronger.

A memory of Mary’s perfume broadsides him: the shape of the bottle, the way it sat on their dresser. He remembers her hands as she pushed her hair back, how she sprayed it just beneath her ears. His breath hitches. _(It came from a fancy department store. Mary dragged him and Dean to Topeka; Dean had just turned three. Their boy perched on the counter, right where she had placed him—Mary told him to be careful, to be careful with special things. Dean held the frosted glass bottle like a bird.)_

The woman is standing right in front of him, draped in russet and green and silver and gold. Her black hair falls loose past her elbows. Her teeth are brilliant white by the glow of her skin. John swallows. The frangipani smell rises and swells; the room swims in it. She reaches out, bangles suspended on delicate wrists. The tips of her fingers trace over the rough weave of his jacket.

He moves. One hand dives into his pocket; the other grabs the spirit’s arm and wrenches it away. She shrieks, enraged, and her whole aspect changes, the beautiful face rotting and ravenous, the elegant fingers talons. She’s stronger than his good hold, and she throws him off against the counter. An instant later and she’s crouching over him, baring a mouthful of curved fangs. He strains to lift the three-inch iron nail he’d been hiding in his pocket; she snarls and knocks it from his hand. Her claws slash deep into his arm. John grinds his teeth, noise churning in his gullet. She rears up; the smell of blood and tropical flowers chokes him.

Dean doesn’t hesitate. It’s one fearless movement to the base of the spirit’s neck, where he plunges the nail as far it goes in. The ghost goes stiff and still, her eyes adrenaline-wide. Dean’s mouth twists, and he thrusts up further with the nail. The spirit arches her back, viscous liquid dripping from her mouth, and abruptly disappears. Dean stumbles back, his hand empty. Red flower petals tumble out of thin air onto the linoleum floor.

Dean reaches for John’s uninjured hand. “How’s your arm?” he rasps.

John takes hold, and pulls himself to his feet. “Good enough to get out of here.”

Dean huffs. “You’re not driving. Give me the keys.”

John fishes through his coat, smiling. “I was imagining this the other way around.”

Dean manages a wan half-grin. “Guess Mrs. Pasaribu had a taste for the older dogs.”

They salt the flower petals and set them alight, just to be certain. No one follows them away from Carriage Hill, and the Impala rides like a victory lap all the way back to Mindy’s.

*

Mindy gets back in the small hours; all the lights in the house are on. The Impala’s angled across her drive, park in a hurry. She sits in her car, not willing to consider what that could mean. Her mouth thins: she slings her purse over one shoulder and steps out into the cold. She finds the front door locked, the living room empty; no boots have been left in the hall. She strains for a sound: a grunt of pain, the slosh of something wet. Mindy drops her purse and hustles.

The Winchesters sit side by side at her kitchen table. A heap of bloody washcloths piles up in a metal mixing bowl next to an old fold-out medic’s kit. The ceiling lamp lights up the half-empty bottle of Jameson. Dean’s hand is sure and precise with the needle; John looks away from the suturing and actually smiles.

“Morning, Mindy. How was work?”

A muscle in her temple twitches; she steadies herself with a deep breath. “Just what in the hell is this?”

John clears his throat. “Pontianak. Indonesian spirit-vampire.” He reaches for the whiskey. “First victim died on her own in childbirth, then stuck around to take it out on everyone else.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She leans closer. “Let me see that.”

“Mindy, I need the light,” says Dean, his attention still on John’s arm.

A sheen of sweat glimmers on John’s forehead. “Dean knows what he’s doing.”

She scowls, but steps back. Dean examines his stitches. “What was our deal?” Her voice shakes. “John, say it back to me: what was our deal?”

He spreads the fingers on his free hand. “Where else were we supposed to do this? I’m not having my shooting arm sewn up in a McDonald’s.”

Mindy juts out her jaw. “This? This right here? This is why I don’t board hunters. I see this all day at the hospital. I asked you not to bring it back here.”

“It was a little unforeseen,” interjects Dean, his voice graveled and tight. “Hold still, I’m tying off.”

Mindy huffs, and forces herself back a pace. “Well. God forbid you be anywhere people might ask questions. Somebody might even tell you to get some help!”

John tilts his head up at her. “You got terrible bedside manner, you know that?”

“Done,” grunts Dean, setting aside his kit. “Let’s get it dressed.”

He holds his arm toward her, pain and liquor lighting his eyes. “You want to make sure it’s done right, you can do that, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“You go to hell in a gasoline suit,” she snaps, and storms into the living room.

“It’s my shooting arm,” John slurs in the kitchen. The house stays quiet after that.

Some time passes. Dean comes and finds her pressed into her armchair, her knitting needles clacking at a furious pace. A long stretch of yarn erupts from her fists and down past her knees. Dean hangs back. “That’s not hoodoo, is it?”

Mindy doesn’t look up. “You think I’d curse with yarn from the Wal-Mart discount bin?”

“You do seem a little intense about it.” He shifts on his feet. “I mean, hey, it pays to be careful.”

“Be glad it’s you saying that and not him.” She sighs, and drops her hands to her lap. “I don’t hold with hoodoo, you can calm down.” She lifts the mottled knitwear to eye-level, her expression somewhat sour. “No, this isn’t anything special. I ruin things if if I do my real work angry, so I take up this ugly thing until I’m not.”

Dean nods, and slips his hands in his pockets. “Well, he’s asleep on my bed now, so he’s out of your way.”

“I appreciate that.” The corners of her mouth quirk. “I’m sure he does too.”

He offers a tight shrug. “You just caught him at a bad time. Getting clawed up by a dead chick tends to make him cranky.”

She switches to purling, her movements slower and steadier. “By the way, nice stitchwork back there.”

Dean laughs, without humor. “We get enough practice.”

“Yeah, I bet.” She glances up, and nods at an ottoman nearby. “You want to have a seat?”

He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Actually I thought I’d take the couch and—”

She lifts her eyebrows. “I want to ask you something.”

Dean sits down quick at the order. “Okay.” He waits for more, but Mindy stays focused on her needles. His attention wanders. The ottoman creaks beneath him.

“It was the credit cards.”

She looks up. “Hmm?”

“Our credit cards,” he says, leaning one elbow on his knee. “They’ve been getting flagged. We had to hustle half of Knoxville to cover this leg.”

“Ah, so you two are the fraud types.”

Dean shrugs and looks away. “We were distracted, got sloppy.” He dips his head. “We’ll be fine, just need to lay low for a while.”

She fixes him with a glare. “No applications go out from my house.”

He smiles. “No ma’am.”

Without preamble, she sets the knitting aside. “I’m gonna need your help with these, I think.” She tugs a basket full of strings and bits from beside her chair.

Dean frowns. “Arts and crafts? That’s not really my scene.”

“Should be. It’s damn useful.” She picks through the basket. “I got production covered. This is on-the-ground maintenance work I need.”

“No offense, but what’s keeping you?”

She chuckles. “Security’s got it figured I’m not someone’s mama out to surprise her daughter.”

Dean snorts. “You want me to break into the dorms?”

“And classrooms, yeah.”

“For what?”

“Upkeep.” She leans back in her seat. “We need it here—OU’s one of the most haunted campuses in the country.”

“Really?” He cants his head. “There’s a lot of hype, but there really aren’t too many jobs here.”

Mindy bows with a little flourish. “You’re welcome.”

Dean blinks, incredulous. “No way.” He eyes her basket. “With just that?”

She nods. “Sure do.”

He sits up. “How’s that?”

“I’m glad you asked.” She bends forward and fishes up a wards, this one a complex knot of leather, wire and bone. “You know your dead languages, how they’ll expel a demon?”

“In theory.” He peers at the ward. “I’ve never done it myself.”

She holds it out. “This is a language too.”

“Really.” Dean loops his fingers through the leather cord, thumbing a delicate sparrow skull.

“Course. It’s a rules thing, not an alphabet thing.” She nods at his hands. “Spirits get caught up in patterns, acting out something about their lives or deaths, over and over. You lay down the right pattern, they fall right into it. You do it right, they get neutralized. That’s the Cliffs Notes version.”

He spreads his fingers, taking in the latticework. “And you do that all over the county?”

She snorts. “You kidding? I’m a nurse, I don’t have that kind of time. It’d be like setting up an ant trap every place you see an ant. No, with these you got to economize.” She scoops up another from the basket, all wire and hard vines. “Wards, sigils, all these things have a range. It’s like a network of radio towers. There are ways you can set ‘em up they feed off each other. You got to be careful, though.” She glances up. “Do the setup wrong and your ghost has got free range through your whole turf. They’ll go from ward to ward like floors on an elevator.”

Dean holds out the sparrow skull netting. “That’s reassuring.”

“Oh, you got nothing to worry about. I been doing this eight years, it’s never happened to me.” She sets the ward on top of the basket. “This job is inherited. Been going at least a hundred and fifty years around here. Only time we get trouble is when there’s new ghosts. These days they’re all of ‘em under control. I’m just here to keep ‘em that way.”

Dean crooks half a smile. “All your friends know you do this stuff?”

Mindy shrugs, evasive and companionable. “I don’t hide my baskets, but they only see the pretty ones.” The corners of her eyes crinkle. “They think I save ‘em to sell at craft fairs.”

“Yeah, some of that stuff goes real well with a family room and curtains.” He frowns again. “You don’t want me to go do this now, do you?”

“Not a chance. You need your rest.” She pushes the basket back into its corner. “We’ll get you set up tomorrow afternoon.” She stands up; he takes his cue and gets to his feet as well.

“Will this make you not angry with us?”

She purses her lips. “Definitely you; your father, lemme get back to you.”

Dean stops. “You really swear nothing hinky happens to him while I’m gone.”

Mindy laughs. “Dean, I forgive as quick as I blow up. Your dad’s a son of a gun, don’t you go thinking I really mean it. I make a lot of noise when people give me a scare.”

He nods, and even returns the smirk. “Hey, I didn’t tell you about the credit cards, by the way.”

Mindy stretches, casual as a wink. “Now tell me, Dean, why I’d care about something like that.”

*

The sigil curls silent and silver, its shape flowing and weaving over the attic wall. The two students sit side by side, in their underwear, not moving and not touching.

“Urizen,” Tara murmurs.

Dustin glances at her. “Tharmas.” He holds in a sneeze. “It won’t be tonight,” he mutters again.

“Hush,” croons Tara, gazing on the sigil. “He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.” She licks her lips absently. “Two lasts only for so long before three.”

“It’s four,” he points out. “It should be four.”

“I know that.”

He dips his head and fiddles with the hem of his boxer shorts. In the low light of the dormitory attic, his bare shoulders are very pale. Tara shifts in her chair. Dust streaks her thighs and back. Dustin swallows, and looks away again. “Were we told?” he tries, fidgeting.

She shakes her head. “If the Sun and Moon should doubt, they’d immediately go out.”

Heavy footsteps interrupt the recitation. Dustin jumps to his feet, staring into the long corridor. “Oh,” breathes Tara. “Do you think?”

A beam of light sweeps out through the space in front of them. Tara rises. They stand shoulder to shoulder and wait.

“Whoa! Hello.”

The man is armored in a leather jacket. He stops as soon as he sees them. The glare of the flashlight hides his face. “I have said to the Worm Thou art my mother and my sister,” Tara mumurs.

The man points the flashlight between the two of them. “I’m not interrupting something, am I?”

Tara tilts her head but otherwise doesn’t move. “The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.”

The floor creaks beneath the stranger’s feet. “Okay, that’s… definitely good to know.” He points the flashlight to the walls. “Don’t let me keep you crazy kids. I’m just, ah, lookin’ for something.” The light runs over the room, tripping on cobwebs and furniture wrapped in sheets. His beam catches on the sigil: the interloper pauses. “That’s different,” he mutters.

Tara draws herself up. “He who does not know Truth at sight is unworthy of her notice.”

The man scoffs in the dark. “Yeah, sweetheart, right back at you.” He points the flashlight right at Dustin, who shies away from the beam. “Keep trying there, Sparky, I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it someday.”

Dustin’s fists clench as the man turns to leave. Tara tips her head back, and bites her lower lip hard. “We waited, but not tonight. O Albion.” The word echoes through the dim and dusty room.

The man stops and turns, his flashlight pointed to the floor. “What was that?”

“Albion.” She closes her eyes and sways at the taste of it. “Albion, _Albion.”_

 

 **VIII. Active Evil is better than Passive Good. (Wm. Blake)**

Early May is good for nighttime walks in Athens—no bugs or stifling humidity to ignore, just a chorus of spring peepers and the occasional car on the highway. Sol likes wandering in this town. Being on his feet helps him think, and all his years at OU, he’s found his best ideas come to him walking.

The bike path arcs along the river, from one end of town to another. He can follow it, lamp post to lamp post, all through like an artery. Tonight he’s been wandering far and wide: he’s crossed the Hocking at the overpass by the Ridges, and cut through the playground behind the old asylum. He strolls past slides and swings and a miniature log cabin; a covered bridge leads him to a half-paved road on the other side of a creek.

Dairy Lane is a long nave of trees where he pauses to light up. The weeds in the ditches are already tall. He runs his hand over the tops of them all the way to the end of road, until he reaches the Dairy Barn.

He always forgets how big it is, set into a hilly meadow ringed with trees. The sign out front calls it a cultural center, home to world-renowned folk arts exhibitions. Sol pauses in the empty parking lot. Through the dark windows, a light is flickering. He looks on either side of him, but no one else is here. He clamps the joint between his teeth, _The Good, The Bad and the Ugly_ -style. A thing like that bears investigating. Burrs snag on his jeans; the rough wheatlike heads of grasses brush against his fingertips.

In the field behind the barn, his foot bumps against something. Sol hops back, cursing. He crouches down, first to massage his foot, then to examine what he ran into: it’s a stone post, inlaid with some sort of design in metal. The human shapes are stylized and fluid. He digs through his jeans pocket and comes up with his lighter. He leans closer. The text glimmers in the metal. “As none by traveling over known lands can find out the unknown,” he murmurs aloud. “Huh.”

The lighter flickers. Wind snakes through the tall grasses, rattling and rustling the stalks. Sol scratches the stubble beneath his chin. His blue plastic Bic goes out; the white light throwing the weeds into shadow does not.

He turns around. A human figure glows nearby, clear and serene. Sol is sure it’s watching him.

“What do you know,” he chuckles. “Hello, overactive imagination.” The figure remains impassive. Its whiteness obscures any features, but the shape of it isn’t female. Sol takes a few steps closer. “Yeah, okay, this is better than dissertation work. You gonna talk to me or anything?”

“I labor upward into futurity,” it says.

Sol halts. “Holy shit.” The figure seems to study him. “What the hell are you?”

The figure dips its chin. “The eternal body of man is the imagination.”

Sol circles the figure. It lets itself be observed. Sol taps his fingers against his lower lip. “Do you have a name?”

The light flickers for the barest of instants. The face dims enough to clarify into specifics, which vanish as the glow resumes. “The True Vine of Eternity.”

Sol wrinkles his nose. “Mysticism? Come on, that’s a cop-out.”

A shock of chill air washes over him. The hands of the bright figure curl in on themselves. “I must create a system, or be enslav’d by another man’s.”

“Amen to that.” Sol crosses his arms. “But come on, we should argue about something. Consensus does no good at the beginning of a conversation.”

The figure dims again: Sol makes out the curl of a lip. “That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.”

Sol laughs. “Okay, I stand corrected. This isn’t my visionary moment.”

A very solid hand grabs his shoulder. Sol frowns down at it. “Um. What the hell, man.”

“The poetic genius is the true man,” it growls.

He pulls back. “That’s nice. You gonna let me go?”

The grip tightens. “He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only.”

Sol tries again to slip out from under the hand. “Okay, not cool or funny or interesting anymore—”

The glowing figure hurls him back. Sol crashes against the stone post: it leaves him winded and wide-eyed with pain. “Jesus!” he shouts, struggling upright.

The figure does not cover the space between them in sequence: it kneels beside him, the white light close and cold and blinding. “I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the divine arts of imagination.” It speaks without breath: Sol only sees the mouth moving like a bad dream.

He scrabbles sideways, and tries to lurch to his feet. “Leave me alone,” he gasps. For a moment the figure contemplates him, then just as illogically appears at his side again. A darkness wells up within it: features appear in its face. Sol’s jaw drops. “Holy shit. Holy shit, I know you.”

The figure cries out, enraged, and swipes at him with its hands. Sol looks down to see blood heaving through his shirt. “It is false!” the figure snarls. “It is false, it is false, it is _false!”_

It plunges its hand into the center of Sol’s sternum. He feels it, he _feels_ it, solid and immaterial both at once, and this is perhaps more confounding knowing that the figure is holding his heart in its fist. It flares, and leans close. “Every death,” it whispers, “is an improvement of the state of the departed.”

Sol is too far gone to scream. The tall grasses bat against each other, hissing; the light casts razor-wire shadows through the field.

*

Mindy can’t take her break until dawn. She pushes through a side door to the sun rising through a clear, pale sky. The hospital sits right on the Hocking River: hordes of Canadian geese stroll up and down the banks, ignoring the staffers who lounge on benches. Pat Wilson, still in his EMT uniform, clutches a coffee and a cigarette. He doesn’t notice as she passes. The paramedic isn’t the only one who’s rattled: further down, Dr. Latrobe from surgery is leaning against a tree, staring out into space. Ted Grady, the cardiology tech, is bent double in prayer.

Mindy strays out of earshot before she takes out her phone. The number rings twice, and the third is nearly finished when someone grunts a curse on the other end. The voice is thick with sleep. “Hello?”

“Dean? Is that you?”

“Mindy?” He groans over the line. “It’s five in the morning.”

She frowns down at her watch. “Where are you?”

“Selma, Alabama. Central time zone, we’re an hour behind you.”

In the background, John asks who it is. “That your dad I hear?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

She eyes the geese strutting over the grass. “I need you two to get back here. I’ve got a job that needs doing, and I think you guys should do it.”

“In Athens? Here, hang on a minute.” She listens to Dean fumble with the phone. “Okay,” he says, his voice fuzzy with static. “You’re on speaker.”

“Hey, Mindy,” John rumbles in her earpiece.

“Hi yourself. Listen, I got a job for you. How soon can you get up here?”

John pauses. “What’s the job?”

She turns away from the other hospital staffers, dropping her voice. “Two o’clock this morning, the hotel out by the Dairy Barn gets complaints about screaming. They send police down there and find a kid damn near split open in the field out back. They brought him in to my ER—that he lasted more than twenty minutes was a miracle. Nobody here’s ever seen anything like it, and we’ve all handled a lot of car accidents.”

“Is there more?” asks John.

She crosses one arm over her chest. “Cops I talked to couldn’t find any sign of an assailant. No marks on the body either, except his torso being cracked open.” She looks back toward Ted Grady, still praying. “When I had him on the gurney, he wouldn’t stop saying a word. ‘Albion.’ That mean anything to you?”

The two Winchesters are silent for a moment. Then: “Led Zeppelin lyric?”

John huffs. “What?”

“What? _Presence,_ ‘Achilles Last Stand.’ ‘Albion remains sleeping now to rise again.’”

“I think we can rule Zeppelin out of the equation here.”

“No no no, wait, hang on.” Dean’s voice is clearer now: he’s waking up. “Those kids. Remember, I told you, before we left last time?

“Vaguely.” John weighs this. “You think they’re connected?”

“Whatever it is,” Mindy interjects, “something’s up, and it’s not going away on its own. You don’t go after a tiger with a peashooter. I want you two on this.”

John chuckles. “Mindy, you sure know how to get a guy’s blood pumping.” His voice grows fainter; he’s not talking into the phone. “How do we want to do this?”

She listens as the two of them trade interstate names and highway numbers, until John announces they can be there by tonight, once they’ve had some coffee and breakfast. “That’s a couple hundred miles,” she says, surprised.

“We’ll be okay,” John assures her.

“Well, so long as I don’t have to drive with you. You need my couch again?”

“No, we’re cool,” interjects Dean. “We’ll let you know when we’re close.”

“All right. Autopsy hasn’t been scheduled yet. You need to see the body as is?”

“Can you stall it?”

“You’d have to get there first thing in the morning.”

“You got it. Thanks, Mindy.”

“See you, John. Dean.” She ends the call, and looks out over the river. Up the steep hill on the other side of the highway, the Ridges perches amid a flock of tall trees, looming over the hospital and the city with grim Victorian grandeur. Mindy turns back toward the park area. Down on the riverbank, the geese start honking at each other. All the other staffers have gone back inside. She follows: she has a mess to clean up.

*

John nurses a coffee, one arm slung over the back of the booth. Dean shovels another forkful of sausage in his mouth. John shakes his head and smiles into his mug. Dean stops chewing and looks at him. “What?”

“Nothing.” He takes a swallow. “It’s just that was one hell of a body. But I’m glad to see your appetite’s intact.”

Dean shrugs. “I’m not the one who’s dead.”

He swirls the last of the coffee in the bottom of the mug. “Can’t argue with that.”

Dean spreads his hands, still clutching the utensils. “Plus we never go to Bob Evans anymore. What was the kid’s menu theme they had? It was two dogs…”

John cants his head. “Biscuit and Gravy.”

“Yes!” Dean spears a few home fries. “I’m surprised you remember that.” He leans on his elbows, watching as he chews. “They never gave us toys here, though. That was the only strike against this place.”

Something in Dean’s face retreats at John’s expression. He turns his attention back to his plate. “How long will you need at the library?”

John leans back against the booth. “I don’t know, depends how long it takes me. Just get back there when you’re done at the registrar.”

Dean nods. Behind them, laughter bubbles up from another table. They both twist to see what the commotion’s about. Dean’s eyes linger on the group: not one but three pretty college students sit clustered together. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Are you hearing this?”

“Hearing what?”

The table of girls bursts out laughing again; one of them covers her face with manicured hands. Dean takes a gulp of water and swishes before standing up.

John sets down his coffee. “Where are you going?”

“The registrar’s office, uptown.” He slips into his jacket. “I’m going to see if they might need a ride.”

John frowns. “Dean, no fooling around. A man is dead this morning.”

“Hey, give me some credit.” He flips his collar. “I’m doing recon with the locals.”

“You check in with me—”

“Yes sir!” he calls over his shoulder, and swaggers over to the table of students.

John is too tired for this right now. Trying to stop Dean’s tomcatting is a Sisyphean task at best. The girls have already invited him into their open seat. He decides not to stick around to watch. He’s got a case at hand, one strange word his only lead.

*

The Athens Public Library is all windows. John’s shadow is long over his table when Dean appears at his elbow. “That took you,” he says, quiet and controlled.

He sits down and slides a file folder thick with copies across the desk. “I got the names of the two freaky kids.”

John looks away from his books to the folder. “Good job,” he murmurs, once he’s scanned the contents.

Dean settles further back into the chair. “Tara Gilkyson and Dustin O’Leary. One of those girls I picked up was her physics TA. They were all trading stories back at the restaurant.” He leans on his elbows, tapping the file. “Two good students written up all over this year. Academic probation, for being disruptive in the classes they do get to, and housing probation for hanging out in their underwear where they shouldn’t. Dustin’s record started in September, and Tara’s in February.”

“We’ll talk to them.” John twirls his pen. “What’d you get on the victim, Solomon Horowitz?”

Dean shrugs. “Not much. He was some kind of golden boy in the philosophy department. Was writing his dissertation on John Locke, whoever that is.”

John taps one of his books, chasing a notion. “What were the other two studying?”

“Physics for the girl, business for the guy. Or they were, before they got all buckets of crazy.” He peers at the book. “What’s this?”

“Albion.” John catches Dean’s eye again. “Tull had it in there too.”

“Jethro Tull killed this guy?”

John snorts softly. “‘Coronach.’ Rare track, we’ve got it on one of those tapes.” He glances sidelong. “You know I raised you better than that.”

Dean holds up both hands. “You know my feelings on the matter. Flutes do not belong in rock'n'roll.”

“Apparently I can’t teach you everything.” He sits back, silent for a moment. “You ever heard of a writer named William Blake?”

Dean presses his lips together. “Sounds kinda high school English. Why?”

“‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,’” he intones, and flips through the pages. “‘What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?’” He stops at a full-color illustration and hands it over. A human figure floats in midair, agonized or ecstatic, contorted and vaguely glowing. “The man was obsessed with visions and ghosts, not to mention convinced he spoke with angels on a regular basis.”

“That’s comforting.” He glances away from the page. “That pose look like the victim to you?”

“Yeah, I noticed that too.” John opens another book. “It gets better.” He taps a poem. “He believed it was his task to open the eyes of mankind to eternity. Spirits appeared to him pretty regularly and revealed the holy truth.”

“Well, he sounds balanced.” Dean skims the stanzas. “What’s that have to do with the case?”

“Apparently his visions showed him the order of the universe. He printed and illustrated huge accounts, which are just as complicated as you’d expect. Albion’s got marquee billing.”

“What’s so great about him?”

“He was divided into four parts somehow, which became these things called zoas.” John rubs his chin. “What did you say those kids’ names were again?”

Dean looks at him, curious. “Tara and Dustin.”

“And the victim’s name was Sol.” He pushes a book between them. “The zoas are called Tharmas, Urizen, Orc and Los.”

“You know what it means?”

“Not yet.”

Dean frowns. “Are they dangerous?”

He shakes his head, studying the open book. “I don’t even think they’re real.”

“How is that useful?” Dean sighs, and scratches the back of his neck. “You gonna need much longer here?”

John raises one eyebrow. “You could help me.”

Dean dips his head. He doesn’t have to tell him anything more; Dean knows what to do, and he goes to do it. John watches him disappear through the stacks. His hand hovers between his books, and the file Dean brought him.

*

The Junction is all decked out for Fortune Cookie Night. The bar counter is strewn with them, individually wrapped; discarded fortunes litter the tables and the floors. Cassie is out on the Court Street Shuffle, pinballing from bar to bar with a flock of friends in celebration of senior honors. The end of college is better than the end of high school: the world feels bigger, even if Athens is no Cape Girardeau. Cassie likes her prospects. She's going to enjoy this last month here, and her friends are on just the same wavelength. Her voice is husky from all the laughter and shouting; her tequila sunrise is gone far too soon, and she's not even feeling it yet when she hits the bar for another.

She's even not surprised when he sidles up beside her, leather jacket and all. The happenstance with which Dean enters and exits her life is just a given this time. He closes his eyes as he grins, one elbow on the bar. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…”

She snorts, her smile involuntary and unfeigned. “You're quoting _Casablanca_ at me?”

He shrugs, unrepentant. “I haven’t seen it. It’s one of those, what, cultural osmosis things.” His smirk turns rakish. “But people are always impressed when I pull it out, so hey, what they don’t know can’t hurt me.”

It seems incongruous that Dean would know a word like “osmosis.” Cassie settles on her arms. “ _Casablanca_ ’s a great movie.”

“That's the rumor. You wanna convince me?” The strings of colored lights play over his face. He taps the counter. “What're you having? Let me cover it.”

Cassie bites her lip. “A mojito,” she decides, spur of the moment.

Someone squeezes in next to him; his shoulder presses up against her. “Gesundteit. A what?”

“Rum, lime and mint.” She tilts her head. “You wanna try some of mine?”

Dean rolls his shoulders, keeping his eyes on hers. “I dunno, sounds kinda girly.”

Cassie grins right back. “Oh, I assure you, it’s strong enough for a man.”

“You’re making deodorant jokes at me?”

“You’ll sit through _Lord of the Rings_ and not one of the greatest films of all time?”

He holds up both hands. “Hey, I am not a nerd? But I know movies, and that was a great movie.”

“You’re gonna have to convince me of that.”

“Oh, I’d like to.” Dean hails down the bartender, mispronounces “mojito” and orders a Molson for himself. Cassie examines the fortune cookies covering the counter and hovers over one. Dean catches her wrist. “No no no no, what’re you doing? You gotta take the one that’s closest to you.”

Cassie blinks at his hand. She had forgotten that about him, the ring and the bracelets and the rough, sure capability. Dean cocks an eyebrow. “What, you never knew that?”

She glances at him. “Not exactly.” Dean laughs and lets her go.

“Spoken like an only child.”

Cassie splits open her cookie. “Is that right?”

He pulls a face. “It's my Spidey-sense.”

She shakes her head, mock-despairing. “Spoken like a nerd.”

“Hey, some things only your family can teach you.” He's unwrapping his as well. “What'd you get?”

Cassie glances at him. “I thought you weren't supposed to tell.”

He waves it off. “Nah, that's wishes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, fortunes are different.” He cups both palms around his bottle. “Come on, show me.”

She holds it out. _There is still time for you to take a different path._ Dean wrinkles his nose. “Aw, that's lame.” He offers his: _A thrilling time is in your immediate future._ He nods, his eyes alight. “Now that's what I call good news.”

Cassie leans forward. “So that’s your fortune.” Behind her, Molly and Lauren crow with laughter. Dean doesn’t look away.

“We could trade.”

The corners of her lips curl up. “Or we could share.”

He huffs a laugh, his expression wry. “That doesn’t make this a beer-battered booty call, does it?”

“You’re the one with the beer. Anyway.” She bumps shoulders with him. “I’m not drunk.”

He smiles, and it’s just as crooked and inviting as she remembers it. “Neither am I.”

Dean doesn’t leave her room until sunrise.

“Hey,” he says, pulling his shirt back on. “I think I’m in town for a while.”

Cassie stretches on her rumpled sheets. “Then we should do this again.”

He plants both arms on either side of her. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

The sun falls in bands over his face as he pulls away from the kiss. Dean is very close. His eyes are green.

   
  **XIV. I see Every thing I paint In This World, but Every body does not see alike. (Wm. Blake)**

When the waitress moves away from topping off John’s coffee, the kid is just standing there. He fits Dean’s description: pale and red-headed, slight, a little shallow-chested. John puts on his easiest smile and gets to his feet, offering a hand. “Hi, are you Dustin?” The boy nods, wary. After a beat, he takes the hand and shakes. John gestures at the seat opposite. “I’m Dan Steele, from the Hudson Health Center. Have a seat.”

Dustin eyes his checkered shirt and the Carhartt jacket bunched up at his side. “You don’t look like a counselor.”

John dips his head. “It’s after hours. I’m heading home after we talk.”

Dustin swallows, then slides into the booth, his shoulders hunched. “Sorry I missed my appointment,” he mumbles. “I must have forgotten.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re here now.” John threads his fingers together. “You want anything to eat, drink?” Dustin shakes his head. His eyes fall on the book at John’s elbow; he goes still. John glances down at it. “Biography of William Blake,” he says, still casual. “Interesting stuff.”

Dustin squirms and sinks down into his seat. “I have also the Bible of Hell, which the world shall have whether they will or no.”

John tips his head. “I’m sorry?”

The boy’s face contorts. “Sorry. Sorry. I don’t know.” He looks away. “I don’t know, they just—since—they just come out,” he finishes miserably.

“Since what?” John lowers his voice. “Since September?”

Dustin’s jaw works soundlessly for a moment, until he reaches for a napkin and begins shredding it. “Unbroken masses, unbroken lines, unbroken colors,” he mutters.

John lifts the book and takes out a pad of motel stationary. “Does that mean something to you, Dustin?”

He doesn’t look up, but his breathing hitches. “The cut worm forgives the plow.”

The waitress swings by again, but John shakes his head and she moves on. He leans forward. “What happened in September, Dustin?” The boy doesn’t meet his eye, but reaches for a fork and presses his thumb hard on the tines. “It’s okay,” John urges. “You can tell me. I won’t think you’re crazy.”

Dustin laughs, a soft, desperate bark. “I am crazy.”

“I won’t lie, you’re saying some pretty strange things.” He watches Dustin focusing on the fork. “But something happened to you this fall. I don’t just believe it, I know it. I want to help, Dustin. You can trust me here.”

Dustin holds up the mangled fork and twirls it between his fingers. “The Eye sees more than the Heart knows.”

John straightens. “I just read that.” He frowns down at the Blake biography. “In here.”

Dustin nods furiously. “And what shoulder and what art could twist the sinews of thy heart?” He presses his lips together and looks around the diner, his every movement cagey and nervous. He hugs his elbows. “There is only one endangered species,” he whispers. “Me.”

“Is that Blake too?” John tries to follow the kid’s eyes, but it’s a lost cause. “Is it all Blake, these things you’ve been saying?”

Dustin shakes his head. “Let’s go,” he hisses.

John pushes aside his mug. “Where?”

“Let’s—I can show you.” He nods again. “It wants to be seen.”

John leaves a bill too large for his order and follows Dustin out of the diner. He leads him through a parking lot, past the police station, and down a lane next to a church with a huge white spire. They cross another parking lot, until Dustin brings him to the top of a steep set of stairs. “There,” he says, pointing. Beyond the shade of some spindly trees stands a massive archway. Dustin lets him go first, to stand on the steps in front of the towering monochrome mural.

“What is this?” John asks, glued to the improbable shapes of the figures, ghoulish non-expressions on skeletal faces.

Dustin wrings his hands. “This is the generation of them that seek thy face, O Albion.”

*

“His name’s Aethelred Eldridge. He’s an art professor. Do you know anything about him?”

Mindy bends down in front of the oven, squinting through the window at her meatloaf. “And his connection to all this is what, now?”

John steps into her kitchen. “He did a mural underneath the art department. Pretty apocalyptic-looking.” He slips both hands in his pockets and leans against the doorjamb. “It repeats the word ‘Albion’ over and over again—it’s full of references to Blake. One of the victims brought me there and told me that was where he was attacked.”

She bustles across the kitchen, pointing without looking. “You want to set the table for me? Silverware’s in that top drawer. Three places.”

He picks out utensils. “You got ahold of Dean?”

“Oh yes.” She straightens. “He shouldn’t be long. I told him there’d be pie.”

John doesn’t waver. “Mindy, the job—”

“I don’t know much,” she interrupts in self-defense. “He’s supposed to be real weird, but I never heard anything that would make me think he wasn’t harmless. What do you think?”

He shakes his head, looking off into the middle distance. “Controlling spirits isn’t unheard of. None of the victims have been artists. Maybe he’s trying to make a point.”

“Pretty poor job of it, then. Is anybody getting it?” John doesn’t answer. Mindy brushes her hands on her pants. “What would he be controlling?”

He shrugs with one shoulder. “Hard to say. Probably not a ghost. The attacks have been all over town, and ghosts tend to stay in one spot.”

“Most of the time,” she agrees. “Man, I hate that binding stuff. Blood and bottles and talismans.” She shudders for a moment before clapping her hands together. “Meatloaf should be about an hour. You want anything while we wait? Water, pop?”

He lifts his chin. “Got anything else on Aethelred Eldridge?”

“Not in my fridge,” she deadpans.

John does have the courtesy to chuckle. “One problem with small towns. By the time I got his name, campus had cleared out.”

“Well, there’s always tomorrow.” She opens the fridge and takes out a can of Sprite. “You think he’s going to strike again, or are you just in a hurry?”

He sobers so fast she has trouble remembering the laugh. “It’s never too soon to end these things, Mindy. You don’t just wait around to catch it in the act.”

“Believe me, I get that.” She pops the tab; the can hisses and foams. “That kind of thinking, must keep you real busy.”

He pauses. “What’s that mean?”

She shrugs. “You tell me.”

John knits his brow, very slightly. “Why is it you insisted we come? There had to be other hunters closer.”

Mindy leans against the sink and sips her pop. “It’s like I said on the phone, you two are the best for the job.”

He crosses his arms. “You barely know us.”

“You have a reputation.”

His voice is flat. “Really.”

She cocks her head. “John, you worried about something? I check in on everybody I expect to have under my roof. I had you sussed last winter. You think I’d let you sleep over and keep weapons in my house if I didn’t know a thing or two beforehand?” She takes another swig. “You and Dean came highly recommended. Varying opinions about how much of a son of a gun you were, but everyone agreed you’re damn good at hunting.”

He huffs—soft, like most of his speech. “You asked around after us?”

Mindy’s gaze is steady, and unapologetic. “Appalachian women know plenty about news-gathering. Not even hunters can fall off the grid when it comes to word of mouth.”

John looks away for a moment; as he opens his mouth, another voice rings through the house.

“Hello?”

Mindy’s eyebrows go up. “I didn’t even hear the car.” She and John head for the front hall. Dean is shrugging off his jacket. John frowns.

“You got a ride?”

Dean nods, and drops the jacket on a hanger. “Yeah, you didn’t pick up the phone.”

John looks him over. “Your hair’s wet.”

He shrugs. “I took a shower.”

“Where?”

“Would you rather I’d not?” John thins his lips, but says nothing. Dean shifts gears and grins. “Hi Mindy.”

She dips a nod. “Hey, sweetheart. You got thoughts on meatloaf and rhubarb pie?”

“Oh God.” He presses one palm to his chest. “I’m yours.”

John clears his throat. “Dean, I’ll be needing you. We got an hour before dinner’s ready. Come in the living room and tell me what you’ve got.” He glances over at her. “Mindy, you need any help from us?”

Her mouth twists. “You two go on ahead. You’ll know when we can eat.”

Dean’s eyes meet hers for a bare moment, questioning: then John touches his elbow and they’re off together, talking shop. Mindy drains the last of her pop and heads back to take care of the dishes. She’s not worried. They’ll come around by the time the food’s on the table.

 

 **XV. Hence thou art cloth’d with human beauty O thou mortal man. (Wm. Blake)**

The first three times, Dean fucks angry. Cassie doesn’t know what makes him so rough. Sometimes she thinks about asking, but there’s an unspoken agreement: that wouldn’t do. This isn’t anything, it’s just a fling. They’re both okay with that.

The fourth time he comes to her, she’s not in the mood for angry. “Hey, hey hey,” she murmurs, pinning one wrist to the wall behind her. “Let’s try this different.”

He draws back. “Something the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter.” She runs her hand over the back of his head. His hair is longer now; her fingers leave furrows through it. “I just want to take it slow for a change.”

Dean scoffs. “What, do I need to light a candle? Scatter some rose petals?” He leans closer, his thumb swiping in circles over the skin above her hip.

Cassie chuckles; he buries his face in the crook beneath her jaw. “Sounds like you watch more romance movies than me.”

He reaches and hitches her up around his waist. “Trust me, there isn’t much inner Fabio to unleash.”

“It’ll be fun, I promise.” She wraps her legs around him. “Take me over there,” she purrs, nodding at her bed, and she can’t believe she actually just purred. “Let me show you.”

*

“Girl, you could put a Christmas tree to shame,” laughs Emma. She bumps her hip against Cassie’s. “Who’s your secret?”

She grins. “No one you know.”

*

“This is probably a weird time to bring this up,” she says, half-naked on the couch, “but I don’t know your last name.”

Dean pushes himself up. “It’s Winchester.”

“Hmm.” She sighs as he lowers his mouth to her again. “Mine’s Robinson.” Dean smirks. She lifts her head to look at him. “What?”

“Dude.” He rests his chin on her stomach. “Your mom’s name is Mrs. Robinson.”

She smacks him on the shoulder. “Can we not talk about my parents now?”

Dean laughs.

*

She has Dean on speed-dial. He whispers when he picks up.

“What are you doing right now?” she asks, her eyes on the rain clouds outside her window.

“I’m in the middle of something,” he says, his voice husky. “I’ll call you back later.”

He does.

*

“So…” She stirs her lemonade with her straw. “You work with your dad.”

Dean nods, his burger halfway to his mouth. “Yeah. Really, it’s boring. Nobody in their right mind does it for kicks.”

Cassie tilts her head, skeptical. “You, boring.”

He grimaces. “It’s claims investigations, what can I say?” He wags his eyebrows. “I gotta make up for it somewhere else.”

She snorts. “I’m sorry, I’m just trying to work with the image of you behind a desk in a tie and pressed pants.” Cassie shakes her head. “What made you decide to go into the freelance insurance business?”

He lifts the burger again. “Crappy guidance counselor.”

*

She leans against the hood of the Impala, looking out over the field. He’s brought them somewhere remote, down a hilly back road she’s never even heard of. “My dad likes cars,” she says, scanning the meadow. “Not like yours. Old BMWs, mostly.”

Dean tosses his jacket through the open window. “He fix ‘em up himself?”

“Are you kidding?” She laughs. “No, he’s not that kind of guy.”

His lips quirk. “You mean the lug wrench and engine oil type?” The afternoon sunlight sets off a note of red in his hair. Cassie shrugs, and tilts back a little.

“I guess.”

“My dad used to be a mechanic.” Dean runs one hand over the hot black metal. “He taught me everything I know.”

“Before he was in insurance?”

“That’s right.”

She nudges him. “Weren’t we going to not talk about our families?”

He holds up both hands. “Hey, you started it!” Cassie pokes him in the stomach, in part to see him squirm and in part for the always-astounding solidness of him. Dean grabs her around the waist. “So, what do you think?”

She can’t hold back the smile. “About what?”

His fingers are dipping below the waist of her jeans. “What do you think?”

Cassie sweeps the scene with her eyes. “Here?”

Dean’s palm slides up her back, callused and capable. His eyes don’t leave her face.

Her own fingers skim the fabric of his t-shirt. She can hardly believe herself. “No one’s ever offered before.”

Dean reaches into his back pocket and holds up a condom. Cassie laughs. “You Boy Scout.”

“Always prepared,” he cheerfully agrees.

The hot steel of the car and the wind in the trees and even the grass marks and the damn bug bites are worth it.

*

“Cassie,” Lauren cajoles through the earpiece. “We’ve got three weeks left. You should come out with us.”

Cassie paces the kitchen. “I don’t know. Can I stop by later? I might have plans tonight.”

The sigh is fond, but loud and clear. “You always have plans these days.”

She looks down at the linoleum floor. “Hey, I love you guys, but sometimes you’ve just got to seize the moment.”

Lauren chuckles. “All right, missy. Whatever keeps you happy. Just be sure we don’t miss you before we graduate.”

The word stops her as soon as she hangs up the phone. Cassie stands by the sink, staring into space. He does make her happy.

Damn.

   
  **XVI. I praise Thee, Father, for hiding all this from the Learned. (Book of Matthew)**

Dean shakes his head. “Unbelievable.” He holds out the laminated ID card. “I don’t believe you didn’t think of that.”

John slips it back into his wallet. “You’re the only one who has. It’s getting the job done.”

That shit-eating grin slips over Dean’s face. “Hey, you don’t think Danielle Steel is into Steely Dan, do you? ‘Cause that’s clearly not her name.”

“I really wouldn’t know.” He taps the pencil end on the latest stack of xeroxed papers. “Tell me what you found at County Records on Eldridge.”

Dean drops down into the chair and heaves a sigh. “Well, dude’s a weirdo, I won’t deny that. He owns about fifty acres way out in the middle of nowhere. The deed says it’s called Golgonooza.”

“That’s a reference.” John rests his forehead against his knuckles. “It’s a city. In one of Blake’s big poems.”

Dean lifts an eyebrow. “It’s still the stupidest name known to man. Anyway, back in the 70’s, our man Aethelred founded the Church of William Blake. Which was also home to some pretty wild parties, if the guy selling jewelry off a buggy is any kind of reliable.”

“And?”

He shrugs. “Drugs and bullshit, for all I can tell. No reports of anything more supernatural than acid trips—though, get this, apparently the Grateful Dead swung by a time or two.”

John scratches his chin. “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t know about other things.”

“Why?” Dean’s eyes are dark; the room has poor lighting. “What’s the point of a flock if you don’t tell them what you know?”

“What’s your theory?” he asks, quietly.

Dean slouches back in his seat. “I don’t have one yet.”

John picks up another piece of paper. “Then we keep going with this.”

*

“Do you have any idea when Mr. Eldridge will be back?”

The art department secretary shakes her head. “No, we have trouble finding him even when he isn’t out of town, and he’s been on sabbatical all this quarter.”

John thanks her, and wanders through Siegfried Hall. The building is much bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside. He passes all manner of pieces on display, photographs and ceramics and prints and sculpture. He exits through the door at the foot of the mural, and takes a minute to stare at the thing. _Rage furious in the furious air_ reads one banner at the top. _I take up where vanishing points leave off._

“No kidding,” he murmurs, counting the signatures peppering the negative space. Æ, over and over again.

*

The sun pools golden in the high grass behind the Dairy Barn. The pegs and police tape are gone from the scene of the assault on Sol Horowitz, but the parking lot’s still empty: no one wants to come here now.

John squints into it, reconstructing the scene. The victim left blood all over the field. Where he didn’t run, something threw him, before it split him open, broke his back in four places.

Dean spreads his arms. “Curator says they’ve got nothing by Eldridge. If we’re dealing with a spirit, something else brought it here.”

John doesn’t answer, just keeps his neck bent, eyes on the ground. Something catches in the light, flashing between swaying weeds. He picks his way toward it, and crouches down: pushing aside the tall stalks reveals a squat stone post, veined with inlays of metal.

Dean joins him. They study the design: two human figures, graceful and sinuous, swirling in midair with arms outstretched. John runs his fingers over the words embossed in the design. _As none by traveling over known lands can find out the unknown._

“The quote fits.”

Dean wrinkles his nose. “That doesn’t look like his stuff. You sure that’s him?”

John taps the post. “His early work is like this. It looks more like Blake’s drawings. The Wall is just his best-known style.”

Dean looks at him for a moment, then laughs under his breath. John frowns. “What?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head and straightens up. “Just this college town. It’s getting to you.”

*

Dorm security thinks John is maintenance crew. He even shows them the EMF detector and talks about some wiring in the attic that might be cause for concern. They let him alone, and boy, does he get some readings.

The sigil’s just where Dean said it was. No signature, but the style matches the stone from the Dairy Barn. He sketches it out, and meets Mindy at a run-down cafe near the hospital. She stares at it long and hard.

“Nothing I’ve ever seen before.” She hands the paper back. “Doesn’t follow any of the rules.”

“I don’t think it’s for protection.”

“I know.” Mindy takes another sip of her coffee. “I got some books at home I can go over.”

He holds up the drawing between two fingers. “You need this?”

“Nah. I’ll remember.” She drains her mug.

*

He haunts the campus library, pours over every monograph he can find. Toner blackens his fingertips; he runs up a tab at the copy center. He’s on the scent of the artist’s mark: Æ. Æ. Æ. Æ.

The room at the Highlander Motel quickly blooms with clippings, their leads for the job taped all over the walls.

“We still haven’t found Eldridge,” Dean points out, sitting on the edge of the bed. John’s old ivory-handled pistol is in pieces on the quilt. “What’re we gonna do to him if we do catch up to him?”

“He can’t be far.” John runs his palm over his face. “Dustin seemed to think the spirit would visit again soon. The more distance you put between yourself and what you’re controlling, the harder it gets to hold on to the leash.”

Dean doesn’t say anything for a moment: if he’s waiting for John to continue, he loses patience. “I don’t know,” he sighs, and studies the spread of papers. “I’m not seeing it yet.”

“Just trust me, Dean, okay?” He sits back in his chair, unwilling to rein in the glare. “You could do better with helping on this, you know. I could use your help moving this case along.”

Dean sets down the pieces of the gun. “What, you think I’m not pulling my weight here?”

“I think your focus could use an edge.”

He doesn’t look away. “You don’t even have a motive for this guy. I checked those kids’ records: none of them have ever had anything to do with Eldridge or his classes or his kooky church. There’s something we’re not seeing here.”

The line of John’s mouth sours. “We’ve been here too long.”

Dean picks up his cleaning rag again, and focuses on the disassembled gun.

*

Cassie rolls onto her side, watching the world pass through the College Green. “It’s weird to think we’ll all be leaving soon.”

Dean is sitting upright, not quite facing her and not quite close enough to touch. They can see most of the central campus, all red bricks and white columns and tall, old trees. “You really like it here, don’t you,” he says.

“I do.” She picks at the grass. “It’s a nice place. But I know it’s time to move on. Four years is enough.”

He smiles down at his knees. Cassie rests her head on her arm. “What?”

“Nothing.” He shrugs. “We’ve just always moved around a lot, that’s all.”

She shifts her hips, squirming until she’s comfortable on the ground. “What’s the longest you’ve ever lived somewhere?”

Dean’s eyes flick away for a moment. “Four years.”

She knows he hasn’t gone to college, one of the very few things she does know. His expression stops her from pushing any further. “Hey, is something the matter? You seem kinda…”

“I’m fine.” He smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

Cassie frowns. “Okay.”

He frowns back. “What?”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

He laughs, and looks away. “Cassie, I’m fine, really.”

She pushes herself up, sphinx-like. “It’s a stupid thing to lie about.”

Dean’s mouth twists down. “I’m not lying about anything. Why’re you getting so hung up on this?”

“You’re the one who’s freaking out over a perfectly innocent question.”

He snorts. “I promise you, when I freak out, you’ll know. This is not it.”

Cassie purses her lips. “Whatever.” She flips onto her back. Neither of them speak again for a full minute.

At last, Dean twists toward her. “Hey, I’ve got to get going. Tonight might not be so good. I’ll call you later?”

She doesn’t sit up. “Okay. Tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Dean leaves. He doesn’t touch her.

   
  **XVII. I have travel’d thro’ Perils & Darkness not unlike a Champion. I have Conquer’d, and shall go on Conquering. (Wm. Blake)**

Mindy rolls down her window and lets her fingers skim the rush of wind. “Awful long way you’re lugging me,” she remarks. Crumbling properties and feral woodlands dip and curve away as they speed through the hills.

“You’re my on-site expert,” John says, eyes forward. “Gotta have you on site to tell me what we’re looking at.”

She settles back against the seat. “You know, any normal person would get one of those digital cameras. They’re starting to make ‘em cheaper now.”

He laughs, under his breath. “You complaining?”

“Not at all. It’s nice not to have to drive myself.”

John rolls his shoulders. “I’m not much good with gadgets.”

Mindy nods, full of affected sympathy. “Old dog, new tricks?”

He glances at her. “Who says I’m old?”

She holds up both hands. “You didn’t hear it from me.” She looks out the window again. “Where exactly are we going now?”

“I’ve got a lead on another one of those sigils. Doesn’t make sense there’d be one so far out, though.”

“Is it on someone’s property?”

“Doesn’t seem to be, and Eldridge doesn’t own it.”

She look at him. “You really think this man’s your guy.”

“I’ve learned to trust my instincts.”

Mindy shrugs. “Fair enough.”

Twenty minutes outside of town, John pulls into a private driveway. At the end of it, a path cuts through the wall of trees and underbrush. “Guess it’s walking from here,” he says, pulling the parking brake.

They tramp through to a small clearing. A marker sits on top of a rise: sun glints off metal inlays in the stone. “Bingo,” John murmurs.

Mindy reaches for the stone. “Look at this.” She runs her hand over a line of text carved around the sigil. _I cannot consider death as any thing but a removing from one room to another._

John crouches in front of it. “That sounds like Blake. There a mark on this? It should look like a capital AE, stuck together.”

Mindy shakes her head. “I don’t see anything. This mark is weird as all get-out, though.”

He tips his head. “It’s the same one I’ve seen on campus.”

“Yeah, but that was just your drawing of it.” She points. “That’s no ward, not in a million years.”

“What’s it do?”

She looks at him. “It’s a locus. This isn’t for stopping a spirit, this is for letting it move around.”

He studies the marker for a moment, then runs one hand over his face. “Makes sense. You send something out, you want a big range for it.”

Mindy shakes her head again. “It’s a ghost.”

He twists to squint up at her. “What?”

She crosses her arms, fingers tapping over one elbow. “I know this isn’t gonna mean a damn thing to you, but the way these lines are arranged, how they’re crossing there?” She points again. “That’s for a simple human spirit. John, I don’t know what’s being controlled, but looks to me like you’ve got a salt and burn on your hands.”

John frowns at his feet. “You think this is base command?”

Mindy shrugs. “I couldn’t tell you. That’s more your field than mine.”

He straightens, sweeping the scene again. “I’ll get Dean to come out here and dig it up.”

She smirks. “Your old back?”

“I’m not old,” he rumbles, smiling a little. “You need to be back at your place?”

She starts back down the path. “I’ve told you what you need to know.”

The Impala spits gravel as it climbs back up to the road. “Haven’t seen Dean in a while,” Mindy says, casual. “He doing all right?”

“He’s fine,” John grunts. “There’s a girl.”

“Ah.” She examines her cuticles. “Well, long as he gets the job done. Got to let kids be kids or it bites you in the ass but good.”

He’s silent for a moment. Mindy doesn’t intrude on the quiet. “How long’s your daughter been out on the road?” he asks at last, focusing on the road.

Mindy blinks, taken aback. “How’d you know?”

“I don’t. ‘Swhy I’m asking you.” He glances over at her. “She’s not hunting, but she’s sure doing something.”

She doesn’t answer for a few moments. “Were you digging in on me, John?”

“You haven’t been the only one making inquiries.” The corners of his mouth quirk. “We swung through town in November for a night. I like to cover my bases.”

Mindy presses herself against the seat. “Well, fair’s fair, I guess.” She toys with the band of her watch. “No, she ain’t a hunter. She doesn’t like killing things. She does like open roads, though. My girl caught itchy feet, growing up here.”

“Amanda, right?”

“Yeah.” She smiles. “Mindy and Mandy, you can imagine how fast that thundered to a stop.”

John twists the wheel, taking the curvy roads cautiously. “So what does she do?”

Mindy sets her hands in her lap. “Same thing as me, just bigger.”

“Family business?”

She laughs. “Not exactly. She started it: I’m the one helping on her job here. She tracks down places need protection, and she sets it up. Not just weed-weaving and paint jobs either—she deals in spirits. Brownies, domovoi, totems, all the heavy hitters, she gets ‘em to do what they do best.”

John looks away from the road a moment. “All at nineteen?”

“You bet. Saves a lot of lives, and saves your type a lot of work too. Her joke is that she’s the school nurse teaching the sex ed class. So yeah, that’s my girl. I just took over her paper route. It’s not like with you and Dean.”

“She sounds like a neat kid.”

Mindy smiles. “Oh, she is. By the way, you ever run into her, you make sure to call and tell me. I like knowing what she’s up to, she never gets around to sharing.” She studies John’s profile. “What about you? How long you and Dean been a team?”

The hill dips in front of them: the car rumbles as he eases the brake pedal. “Since he was little. He’s always looked out for us. Came hunting with me first time when he was just a kid. He’s been coming pretty regularly since about sixteen.”

She tilts her head. “Was it hard, adjusting?”

John pretends he hasn’t heard her for a moment. “Adjusting to what?” he says, ending a too-long pause.

Mindy shifts beneath the seat belt. “I heard you used to be a three-man outfit.”

A steel-trap silence closes in around John. “You heard.”

“Am I wrong?”

He doesn’t look at her. “I don’t think it’s relevant, Mindy.”

She props her elbow against the window. “I’m just concerned, is all. I hear you and Dean are the best, but you’ve been here two weeks and you just now figure out it’s a ghost?”

The car speeds up a little. “I’m on my game, Mindy. Hunting doesn’t run on a schedule.”

“First time I met you Dean had gotten taken down by some has-been asylum spirits.” She spreads one hand. “Now I like you both, but I thought you’d have this finished before now.”

He turns to her. “I’m doing you a favor here. You really want to pick this fight with me?”

“There are ways of fixing this, you know. When I’m mad at my daughter I damn well talk to her.” She sets her jaw. “John, you don’t have to do what you’re doing.”

He grips the wheel and doesn’t reply. The back roads country blurs by around them. “You mind if I drop you at the head of your driveway?” he says at last, his voice steady. “I’ve got something I need to check on in town.”

Mindy glares at him. “Stupid,” she huffs, shaking her head. The next they speak is a parting word as he leaves her behind at her house.

*

Siegfried Hall is one hell of a place to get lost. The place is all stairwells and high, narrow hallways: the wacky art on the walls is the only reliable marker. Dean’s too aware of the loud echo of his boots against the marble floors. Every door he passes is shut: sometimes one of the students inside catches him staring as he goes by. Bulletin boards bristle with staples, pins and fliers, most advertising senior shows and thesis defenses. He eyes his reflection as he passes case after glass case of student work: close-up photographs of dolls or finger-painting or ceramic body parts, briefly overlaid with leather jacket, short hair, hidden weapon, Dean Winchester.

He turns corners, over and over again. Bronze plaques on the walls name the permanent installations. People pass him, here and there, and no one gives him a second glance. John Lennon went to art school in a leather jacket. Maybe they think he fits in. Fine by him: better if he’s not remembered.

He finds it after a solid half-hour. A steady halogen light illuminates the display: one enormous metal engraving sheet, and one vivid, painted print. Dean stops across the hall. Even from far off, he can see it, the intricate, sinuous figures twisting and floating through blocks of text. He bites his lip. He shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet. Somewhere out of sight, tinny strains of Dead Can Dance unravel the quiet.

He approaches the piece. His boots finish their echo before each step. He looks down at the plaque to the right, and the dates beneath the name. “Son of a bitch,” he whispers, leaning close to read the print. One hand roams over the pane of plate glass. Dean doesn’t move until he’s finished the whole thing.

*

“Back again?” the registrar’s secretary asks, eyeing him over the top of her glasses.

Dean leans against the counter, his helpless-in-the-face-of-necessity smile in full play. “Yeah, last-minute graduation stuff.”

Her lips twist. “Well, you know where it is.”

“Thank you.” He starts toward the filing cabinets, but stops and backtracks. “Hey, you don’t know where I could find housing records, do you?”

Her look says it all. _What do you take me for?_

*

Cassie calls him while he’s knee-deep in County Records. He almost doesn’t answer, but he prays for the off-chance that this won’t be about feelings and flips open the phone.

“You’re sure you don’t want to come out tonight?” She’s trying for light-hearted but something’s up, he can hear it in her voice.

He drops his eyes to the file he’s balancing on one knee. “They’re your friends, Cassie. You should hang out with them.”

“I wouldn’t mind you being there.”

He looks up at the ceiling. “I’m working.”

She breathes in, just loud enough that he can hear it over the line. “Don’t freelancers choose their own hours?”

He presses the phone against his shoulder. “Look, you want me to come over when I’m through? Late-night visit?” The thought tires him, but he knows about placating. Sometimes deals can be made.

Cassie sighs. “You’re not this much of a workaholic when it’s just us.”

He checks the name on the tab of the folder. “Cassie, you’ve known me three weeks. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”

“I’m sorry, are you accusing me of being unreasonable?” He winces at the tenor of her voice. “I was hoping you’d be interested in meeting my friends.”

Dean closes his eyes. “Look, I can’t talk now. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Call me tomorrow,” she says. “That was the original plan, wasn’t it?”

He hangs up before he has to answer more. He slips the phone back in his pocket, and uses his free hand to open the old coroner’s report.

*

“Whoa!” Lauren hops up from the table and elbows through the bar to hug Cassie. “We didn’t think we’d see you here!”

“Yeah?” She laughs, and pins a strand of hair behind her ear. “No such luck, guys. Hey!”

Someone grabs a spare chair and they edge aside to make room for her. “So, no Dean tonight?” asks Becca, clutching the stem of her margarita.

Cassie shakes her head. “No, he’s working, apparently.”

“Still?” Molly whistles. “I hope he gets paid well.”

“What’s he do?” asks Troy, one arm slung around Molly’s shoulder.

Cassie can’t quite meet his eyes. “I don’t really know.”

*

John looks away from the wall of clippings as Dean walks in the motel room. “I’m gonna need you to do some digging,” he says, arms crossed over his chest.

Dean stops at the foot of his bed. “Tonight?”

“Tomorrow. It’s way out. Do it in the morning, before the sun gets hot.” He turns back to the poetry taped next to the thermostat. Dean doesn’t move.

“We won’t need to do that,” he says.

John lifts his eyebrows. “Why’s that?”

The corners of Dean’s mouth dip down. “It’s not Eldridge, Dad. It’s nothing to do with him.”

John tilts his head, and turns toward him. “Is that right.”

“Yeah.” Dean reaches into the pocket of his jacket and produces a rumpled stack of paper, carelessly bent down the middle. He holds it out. John eyes it.

“You gonna tell me what that is?”

“A senior thesis.” Dean doesn’t blink. “A death certificate. Some student profiles.” John doesn’t let go of his elbows. Dean knits his brow, his loose arm twitching. “Jesse Lannigan. He was an undergrad in the art school a few years back.”

John shrugs. “What’s that supposed to mean to me?”

“Listen.” Dean’s voice skids over a rough spot: he stretches his hand out farther. “He was the superstar of the department. He did drawings, paintings, metalwork and engravings. And he was obsessed with William Blake.”

John’s shoulders straighten a little. “He one of Aethelred’s students?”

His eyes squeeze shut momentarily. “No, Dad, I’m trying to tell you. He hated Eldridge, thought he was getting Blake all wrong.” Dean rifles through the papers and holds out a copy of a transcript. “He never took a single class with him.”

John holds back. “Dean, so far all you’re giving me is a kid with an ego and an attitude.”

“Would you just let me finish?” He waits, color rising in his face.

John frowns. “Go on.”

Dean swallows. “Jesse Lannigan killed himself the night before his thesis was due. Guy ate a freaking foxglove plant, if you can believe it. The project was all there when they found him. They’ve got it on display at Siegfried.” He shakes his head. “Dad, that’s the artist who did those sigils. They’re part of his thesis. He planned the whole thing out before he killed himself. The thing they’ve got in that building’s a manifesto.”

John watches him, unmoving. “You’re sure about all this.”

“You want more? This ghost is goddamn performance art.” Dean tosses the papers onto the bed. “Read it. It’s all crap about the eternal imagination and the divinity of spirits and visions handing down the truth. You want more? There’s no body. The guy was cremated, along with a collection of the complete works of William Blake. You said it yourself, those kids keep spewing out quotes? I think he’s possessing them, trying to make them into some kind of example of his whacked-out theories. Guess what else?” He stabs a finger at an obit taped to the wall. “Sol Horowitz, the guy who got killed? They were roommates their freshman year. Lannigan got written up for getting into regular screaming matches with him about the meaning of life and other kinds of bullshit. Horowitz was into John Locke and philosophy. Blake despised both of them.”

“You did all this today?” John interrupts, tracking Dean’s prowling with his eyes.

Dean stops, and looks at him, his back stiff. “Yeah.”

He readjusts his hold on his arms. “You did this. Today.”

Dean shifts on his feet. “I’ve been thinking it for a while but yeah, I did.”

“You didn’t bother investigating until now?”

Dean blinks. “I’ve _been_ investigating. It’s just been all your ideas, which were wrong.”

John unclenches his jaw. “When were you gonna let me in on this?”

“Oh, come on!” He paces away. “Were you gonna listen to me?”

John lets his hands fall to his sides. “You just proved you could have done this in no time, Dean. What the hell have you been doing instead?”

“What’s your problem with this?” He spreads his arms. “Am I not supposed to be the smart one or something?”

“That depends on which end you’re leading with,” John snaps.

A muscle in Dean’s jaw bulges. “I’m not gonna fight with you about this,” he says, his voice raw and low. “You can believe me or not, but I’m going to sleep right now.”

“Here?” says John, only half incredulous.

Dean doesn’t answer. He moves toward his duffle and begins rooting around inside.

John waits until he disappears into the bathroom to pick up the mess of papers. Dean falls asleep with his back to the light of the reading lamp. John sits hunched on the side of his bed. The jagged Eldridge skeletons leer and grin and dance overhead.

*

Dean wakes up to an empty room. Dad is gone and the walls are bare again.

He sits on the edge of the mattress, staring at the ugly wallpaper. Dad’s bag is nowhere to be seen, but the keys to the Impala sit splayed on the bedside table.

Dean packs. His movements are automatic but his limbs feel like lead. He checks out and pays for the room. They’d all be better off if he’d done this weeks ago.

   
  **XVIII. Best I’m hollerin’ now, oh, must I shake ‘em on down. Pretty girl’s got they don’t know what it is. (Bukka White)**

Just about everything at the diner looks like overstock from a retro paraphernalia superstore. Dad’s already taken over a booth with a spread of papers. Dean ignores the Life Magazine cover framed overhead and slides in to the seat opposite. A waitress appears out of nowhere, all smiles.

“Can I get you something?”

He swallows, and clasps his hands. “Just coffee.”

Dad looks up. “You ought to eat something.”

He shakes his head. “Not hungry yet.”

Dad straightens his shoulders. “You call Mindy yet?”

Dean doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “Yeah, I let her know to expect us.”

Dad grunts. “If we’re lucky, we can get this done and get moving.”

“You’ve seen what a bad bitch this ghost is.” He leans on his forearms, sliding his palms together. “Better safe than sorry.”

The waitress brings Dean’s coffee, and lingers just to make sure he hasn’t changed his mind. He hasn’t. He sips, not looking at anything. Dad glances up from his documents again. “Your legwork scans,” he says quietly.

Dean stares down into his mug. “I figured it did.”

Dad dips his chin. “I’m glad it’s not in the Wall. I’d hate to think about taking that sucker down.”

“Nah, we’ve got to let that creepyass painting stand for future generations.” The joke feels like dregs in his mouth.

Dad just smiles. “I guess.” The smile is put aside. “We know how to get this thing?”

“Yeah. I—” The waitress comes by again. Dean lets her top off his cup, but casts uneasy glances around the diner. Dad watches him, and nods.

“Where’s the car?”

“Magic Video, across from the Domino’s.”

“Good.”

Dean nurses the coffee a moment longer, then digs into his jacket. “Here.” He slides the keys across the table. “I need to take care of some things. Where should I meet you?”

Dad narrows his eyes. “How long?”

“An hour?” If he’s smart or if he’s lucky, it’ll be that long.

He can’t read anything in Dad’s face. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he says after a pause. “Call me when you’re done.”

Dean’s pretty sure he can only promise to deliver on one of those.

*

Cassie will sleep forever if she can. Dean circles the house, looking for signs of company, but none present themselves. He picks the back door and steps into the kitchen. The place is a mess of dirty pots and empty pizza boxes. Graduation is close and no one wants to buy more groceries. He shuts the door against the mid-morning heat, listening. Outside, cars pass; someone is blaring a radio at one of the frats nearby. Inside, the house is quiet, and most of the shades are drawn.

Dean takes the stairs slowly, his eyes trained forward and up. They’ve spent a lot of time in here, and he has a good memory. Her door is ajar. He knocks first and says her name, but no answer. Dean slips through before he can talk himself out of it.

She’s asleep on top of her covers, long legs twisted in the sheets. Her hair fans all over the pillow, inelegantly bunched. She swims in an overlarge t-shirt and misshapen boxers. The window is open, but no breeze makes it through the mesh screen.

A minute passes before he realizes he’s still holding onto the doorknob. He crosses the floor and lowers himself onto the edge of the bed. He doesn’t touch her, but she stirs at the weight on the mattress. “Cassie, wake up,” he murmurs. The words are almost automatic: _come on, Dad’s waiting, we’re heading out again._ Cassie blinks at him, ox-eyed, and sits up.

“I thought you’d call first,” she says, still slurry with sleep.

He shrugs, threading his fingers between his legs. “Yeah, well, I thought this would be better.” He manages to keep it light. Cassie scrubs at the corners of her eyes and straightens more.

“How’d you get in?”

“The door was open. I thought someone might be home. Guess you didn’t hear me calling.” He smiles. “You have a good time last night?”

“Yeah.” She leans forward and hugs her knees. “You should have come.”

He bows his head. “Yeah, wish I could have.”

Cassie doesn’t look away. “Maybe you can go out tonight. We’re all meeting up at China Fortune at seven thirty.”

Dean opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. Cassie frowns, and he laughs to himself, shaking his head. “What?” she says, her eyes sharper.

“Nothing. It’s just.” He scratches his hairline, glancing at her. “You know, I was thinking about saying yes just now, and then just… Oh man.” Dean takes a deep breath. “Okay.” He meets her eyes. “Cassie, I’ve got to go.”

Neither of them move. “You just got here,” she says.

“I know.” His hand hovers for a moment, edging toward hers, but he pulls back and rests it on his knee. “I mean, me and my dad. Our work, it’s… we’re wrapping up our case tonight and leaving town.”

Surprise flashes over her face, but she gets it under control. All she says is, “Oh.”

Dean exhales: the sigh racks him more than he was planning. “Yeah, it’s gonna keep us busy the rest of the day, and I wanted to… I didn’t want to just leave.”

“Gosh, Dean.” She swallows. “Thanks for being such a gentleman.”

He lifts his head and frowns. “Would you rather I’d not?”

“No. No.” She looks away, at the window. “I appreciate the honesty.” Her lips twist. “Just the facts, straight up. It’s refreshing.”

He leans closer. “What was that?”

Cassie turns back to him, her jaw set. “Dean, what’re you doing here?”

He shifts in his seat. “I’ve told you.”

“Insurance claims? I’m not an idiot. Nobody does that freelance.” She tilts her head away. “Is it drugs?”

“What?” He’s too surprised to laugh. Cassie doesn’t so much as blink.

“Look, I get it. Marijuana’s a cash crop around here. You’ve got way more money than you look like you should, and I—”

“Whoa, hold on—you think I’m a drug dealer?” He leans back, eyes narrowed. “And what exactly does that mean, more money than I should have?”

“No, I didn’t mean—” She scoots back up against the headboard. “Look, forget it.” She kneads her quilt in one hand. “What are we all worked up about? I mean, it’s not like this was ever going to be a long-term thing. I’m going to be out of here soon anyway.”

Neither she nor Dean are convinced. “We’re not dealers,” he says quietly.

“Then what is it?” She knits her brow. “What have you got to lose from telling me?”

He huffs a poor excuse for a laugh, and shakes his head. “It’s not that.”

“Then what?” She thins her lips. “Make up your mind—whatever you’re doing here, don’t half-ass it.”

Dean gets up. “I should go.”

 _“Hey.”_ Cassie’s on her feet in an instant, grabbing his sleeve as he heads for the door. Her expression is strange against her bed head, fierce and yet controlled. “Dean. You’re just gonna leave it like that?”

He pulls away. “You’re better off that way. Trust me on this one.”

“Why? Why should I?”

The plea is so familiar. He draws back another pace. “I shouldn’t have come.”

Cassie holds her ground. “Too late now.”

His fingernails dig into his palm. “Look.” He reaches for her arm. “Listen to me. You can take every thing I’ve told you until now and think it’s a lie, only this? This, Cassie, you’ve got to believe me: I’m trying to protect you here.”

“Protect me?” She spits the words and wrenches back. “Protect me from what? I’m a big enough girl to fuck, but now I want to know something and I’ve got to be protected?”

“It’s not like that!” he hisses, trying to close the space between them, anything to steer this some other direction.

“Then what’s it like, Dean?” She throws her hands up. “Tell me, why should I be so grateful that you’re keeping secrets from me?”

The house goes quiet again, save for the gurgle of old pipes in the walls. Sun peers in through the slats of Cassie’s blinds, shadows slashing across her face. Dean swallows, desperate for any sound that’s not the pounding of his own blood. “You know that guy they found murdered a couple weeks ago?” he says, quietly.

Cassie’s shoulders shift back. “The grad student? What about him?”

“We’re investigating that.” He takes a breath. “Me and my dad.”

She blinks. “You’ve figured it out?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

She wraps one hand around her elbow. “Are you with an agency?”

“Oh yeah, we’re regular FBI.” He shakes his head. “No, this is something we do on our own. That part’s always been true.”

Cassie hugs both her arms. “So, what, the Winchesters, they fight crime?”

He smiles down at the rug. “You could say it like that.”

She looks uncertain. “So, who did it?”

Dean forces himself to stay steady. “A ghost.”

The change is instantaneous: Cassie frowns, eyeing him askance. “What?”

“It’s a spirit.” He twists one of his rings with a thumb. “That’s what we do. We hunt ghosts.”

She doesn’t move. “Is there a hidden camera here?”

“Cassie—”

“No, really, is this some kind of joke?” Her arms drop to her sides. “You hunt ghosts,” she repeats, totally flat. “What, are you, like, rogue documentarians?”

“Cassie—” He steps toward her; she dodges him.

“You really believe it,” she says, staring.

“They’re real,” he says, hoarseness wound into his voice. “I told you, Cassie, you didn’t want to know.”

“That’s… that’s nuts.” A vein pulses below her jaw. “You’re crazy.”

“I’m not.” The silence stretches. Dean knits his brow. “I hate the way you’re looking me right now.” Cassie stays motionless. His hands are shaking. “Say something, please.”

“What’s wrong with you?” she whispers, harsh.

He swipes the side of his face with one sweaty palm. “I’ve got a pretty long list, if you’re really interested.”

She doesn’t laugh. “Dean, if you wanted out, you could at least make up a better story than ghostbusting.”

“I don’t.” He unclenches his jaw. “I don’t want out. But I have to, Cassie. It’s what we do.”

She glares, every line in her body wire-tense. “I think we’re done here,” she says finally. “You want to be getting out of here now.”

She walks over to her door and holds it open. Dean has to slink past her and climb the stairs as she watches. Her eyes bore into the back of his neck the whole way down. He unlocks the front door and pauses, half-turning to look back. The right words should go here—somewhere they exist, the ones that will undo what just happened. He waits too long. “It wasn’t just fucking,” he says, hand on the handle. The landing at the top of the stairs creaks, but he gets no more response than that.

The air on the other side of the door is hot and still. Dean lingers a moment, squinting into the too-bright morning sun. Behind him, he hears the pounding of bare feet, and the frantic _click_ of a deadbolt.

Dean bows his head. He’s the first one to walk away.

 

 **XIX. The scenery is everything inside the barrel of a gun. (Jeffrey Foucault)**

Tara drifts back, her eyes still closed. Dustin blinks at her, his cheeks flush and his lips feeling strangely heavy. “What’d you do that for?” he mumbles.

She opens her eyes, her expression at once placid and breathless. “It’s the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.” She smiles, and tips her head to gaze at the sigil. “Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.”

Dustin swallows, and nods. Her bra strap peeks out from the neck of her shirt. “Should I have opened my mouth?”

She shakes her head. “We called. He’ll come. O, Albion.” Her eyes slip shut again.

He shuffles his feet. “I’m glad you liked the idea.” He takes a deep breath. “Wisdom is sold in the desolate marketplace—”

“Where none come to buy.” She swipes her lower lip with her tongue. “The lost travelers dream under the hill.”

His eyes dart back to the sigil. “The genius is one fox ahead of the ruins,” he mutters.

Tara knits her brow at him. “That is not—”

White light flutters over her cheek. They both stop and lift their faces: the shape of a man hovers, one hand upraised.

“Zoas,” it says, its voice soft and serene. “Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.”

*

“Hey, you with me?”

Dad wags the flashlight again. Dean slips the lock pick into his pocket and stands up. “Let’s make this fast,” Dad says, handing the flashlight over. Dean hefts the green duffle over his shoulder and follows him into Siegfried Hall.

The art along the walls catches in their beams. “You remember the way?” Dad grunts.

Dean keeps his eyes forward. “I got it.”

They fall into step, hurrying through the dim corridors. Having Dad at his shoulder forces him to focus. He’s glad of that barrel-of-a-gun mindset; the rhythm of their stride steadies him.

Dad throws out his hand; they both stop in their tracks. “You hear that?” he murmurs. Dean peers into the half-lit hall.

“Music,” he whispers. “Someone’s in one of the studios.”

Dad holds a finger to his lips: they press themselves against the wall. Somewhere out of sight, wheels heave and creak. Dean cranes his neck as far as he dares. A woman emerges from a room, pushing a cart loaded with bizarre shapes. She swears at the cart, crosses the hall and disappears behind a corner. A moment later, an elevator pings and the heavy shudder of sliding doors echoes through the corridor.

“Where’s she going?” says Dean, as the elevator shaft rumbles.

Dad swipes the flashlight over a sign on the wall: _Ceramics._ “Kilns,” he says. He backs up. “We need to go another way.”

They thread through the building, the weapons in the duffle digging into Dean’s back. None of the display cases are lit, and they lose ten minutes tracking their way through to Lannigan’s print. Dad’s beam catches it first, the colors and the metal engraving plate flashing in the dark.

“Yahtzee,” says Dean, and they approach the piece. He sets down the duffle and roots through a side pocket.

“Almost a shame to destroy it,” muses Dad, poring over the image.

Dean pushes aside a sawed-off. “It’s killing people. It’s not that pretty.” He hands up a screwdriver. “Help me get this frame.”

The glass panel is loose inside a minute. They pry it out and set it on the floor. “You’re sure this kid has our back?” Dean asks, patting his pockets for a lighter.

“Ghost’s distracted,” Dad grunts. “He’d be on us already if he weren’t.”

Dean’s fingers close around his Zippo. “Wish we could just get it done right here.”

“Sprinkler systems are a bitch, aren’t they?” Dad reaches for the illuminated print. It teems with embellishments, vivid paints and metallic leaf. The words shimmer even in the low light. Dad lifts the sheet of paper off its stand and pulls it through the window. He squints into the hall. “Where’s our exit?”

*

One moment, the emanation is with them. It’s revealing the word and shaping their understanding of the world. “Mental things alone are real,” it tells them. “What is called corporeal nobody knows of its dwelling place.”

Tara opens her eyes wide. The emanation turns to her, its fingers reaching for her cheek. She smiles, eager to receive, ecstatic.

Its head turns sharply; the arm draws back. The room flashes. She and Dustin both cry out.

The attic is dark. Dust chokes her as she gasps. “What happened?” she whispers, supine in the sudden quiet. “Where did it go?”

*

John has time to see his shadow leap out in front of him before the light overwhelms them. The next instant, he’s pinned to the wall, his hands empty, his limbs splayed. The ghost burns bright through his eyelids: John hears a stream of language, but his ribs are popping inside his chest and he can’t move or hear or call for his boy or—

A scream that isn’t his rends the air. The light vanishes, and hands grip his shoulders.

“Dad— _Dad!”_ Dean shakes him again. “Answer me, Dad!”

“Where is it?” he wheezes, prying his eyes open. Glass crunches behind him when he moves: the display window is in pieces at his back.

Dean grabs his arm and hefts him to his feet. “I don’t know.” John tracks the sound of his voice; his vision still swims with flashing spots. “Listen, we gotta split up.” Dean presses something into his hand. John rubs it, finds thick paper and a torn edge—one half of Lannigan’s print. “Divide and conquer,” Dean says. “It can’t go after both of us.”

He nods, the paper crumpling in his hand. “Meet you on the east side, ten minutes.”

Dean hesitates. “You’re all right?”

John swings his arm, pointing. “Go.”

*

“Come on, come on,” Dean growls, pounding through the maze of stairwells. Each door he takes only leads to more hallways, and who knows where that damn ghost might be. The print flaps behind him, the flask of salt on his belt battering his hip, until one blessed door leads to the open air and it’s time to end this sucker.

He skids to a stop and only then takes in the rows of steps seething with white figures. It’s the mouth of the amphitheater, at the foot of Eldridge’s mural. “Well, that’s just great,” he mutters, and digs through his pockets. He unearths a plastic Bic, cracks it open and dumps accelerant over the print.

The lamp beside the mural begins to flicker. The grinning shapes lining the amphitheater steps leer and dance in front of him. “No no no, come on…” Dean checks his back, flips the Zippo and holds the paper to the flame.

“No!”

He spins on his feet. All the white space in the mural is rippling: it congeals into a shapeless mass that thrashes in every direction. An instant later, a shining human shape claws through the wall. Dean grabs his rock salt, but the ghost can’t pull itself closer.

“No!” it cries out again. “All reversed and for ever dead!”

Smoke curls up from the burning print. The flames catch on the lighter fluid, and the fire shoots up higher. Dean drops the paper, and the spirit wails. It struggles against the wall, flickering and writhing; then, suddenly as a bulb burning out, it vanishes. Dean stares for a moment, not trusting the stillness. His hand curls on the flask of salt. Nothing comes for him. He looks down at the paper, its edges curling into ember and ash. “The art world totally owes me,” he mutters.

*

John hurries up the hill at the side of the building, empty-handed. “You burn it?” he pants. Dean nods.

“Did it come after you?”

“No.” John feels Dean’s arm for hurts. “You doing all right?”

He laughs, an incredulous huff. “You’ve got the back full of glass.”

John ignores the line of blood dripping from his temple. “I’m okay.”

Dean pats one of his pockets. “You think we’re done here? I’ve got the keys.”

He checks over his shoulder. “Police aren’t here yet.”

Dean steps forward. “Good enough for—”

He’s yanked backward before his face can register the shock. He hurtles through the air, limbs flailing. John yells out his name and bolts after him. White light erupts between him and his son. The brightness towers and rages, but he hears Dean screaming and that’s all he needs. The gun at his hip is full of iron rounds: he plants himself with the building wall to his right. “Hey!” he shouts, and the white shape twists toward him. John shoots. With each bullet, the ghost dims: by the fourth, it’s more than human-shaped, it has features, wide eyes staring right at John before it disappears altogether.

Dean hits the ground with a curse. John holsters the pistol and hurries to help him up. “Son of a bitch,” Dean hisses between clenched teeth. Blood spills from his mouth. “Why isn’t the thing gone?”

“Something we missed,” John grunts, wrapping Dean’s arm around his shoulder. He bumps against the flask tied at Dean’s belt. His face tightens. “The plate. The damn engraving plate. We’ve got to get back in there.”

“Sheet metal?” Dean rasps. “How’re we gonna destroy that?”

*

Outside, behind the art department, the mouth of a kiln rages with red flame. The woman steps back, metal tongs gleaming in her gloved hands.

“Hey!” Dean bellows, boots pounding over the concrete walkway. Dad is at his back, bearing Lannigan’s arm-long metal plate. The woman stops, gaping, in the middle of the path.

“What the hell—”

“Keep that door open!” Dad barks.

Light flares up amid the kilns. Shadows thrash along the ground and walls. The ghost of Jesse Lannigan rears in the middle of the array. Dean sees the woman sail through the air and crack against the squat brick huts. “Dad!” he yells, burying his face in the crook of his elbow.

Something backhands him. Dean staggers against the blow. His eyes open enough to see the shining white figure towering over him. “Albion!” it crows. “I labor upward into futurity!”

“Lannigan!”

Both Dean and the spirit turn at the sound of Dad’s voice. Dad lifts the metal plate and flings it toward the kiln. “Get it!” he shouts, and the ghost howls and charges him. Dad disappears behind a sheet of light: his gun goes off, but an instant later he screams and keeps on screaming.

Dean reaches for his own gun, but he can’t see where Dad is, and no way is he shooting into that. The kiln keeps on roaring behind him. He throws himself forward, and crawls over concrete and grass to where the engraving plate landed. He can see beneath the glow: Dad is twisting on the ground, his back bending and arcing at impossible places.

“The Author is sure of his reward!” the ghost shrieks. Dad punctuates the proclamation with another cry. Dean’s face twists: he reaches out, grabs the metal sheet and staggers to his feet.

“Hey!”

The ghost spins to face him. Dean grips the edges of the plate hard enough to draw blood. The door of the kiln sits wide open, belching heat and spitting flame. The spirit dims: a pair of eyes resolves in the head, gaping. “Big red F on your thesis,” Dean snarls, and hurls the engraving plate into the kiln.

Jesse Lannigan screams. He surges forward, arms outstretched, but mid-stride his limbs begin to twist and splay, and his spine curves back on itself. The furious sound continues the more distorted he becomes: it rises and lasts like it could be endless, but without warning, it cuts off. The spirit flares, and in one soundless pulse of white light, it explodes. Dean throws himself to the ground, his eyes squeezed shut. The concrete catches him on the chin.

It’s quiet again. The only light left spills through the kiln door. Dean blinks in the new dimness, and pushes himself up. The woman lies close by, her eyes unfocused. “Hey,” Dean whispers, reaching out to shake her. “Hey, you with me?” She searches with one hand to touch him. “Hey, don’t go to sleep,” he says, squeezing her shoulder. “Your kiln exploded. We’re gonna get you some help, just hold on.”

She stays limp while he props her up against another kiln, and doesn’t protest when he slips the heavy mitts off her hands. He shuts the door and tosses the gloves aside.

The police should be here by now. The woman won’t have to wait long. He’s done too much already; he goes to check on Dad.

 

 **XX. The greatest Mystery is the Stem. (Aethelred Eldridge)**

The Impala rumbles to a stop in Mindy’s driveway. She’s already off the porch and rushing toward them when Dean steps out of the driver’s side.

“Dad,” he croaks, before she can say anything. “Get Dad first.” At Dean’s side, Dad’s breathing is labored.

The automatic lamp on her garage throws a harsh glow over their faces. Mindy circles to open the passenger door. “The hell did that thing do to you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dad rasps, swinging his legs out. “We got it. Job’s done.”

“War stories later, let’s get you put together again. Jesus!” Dad staggers on his feet; Mindy catches him. Her knees don’t buckle.

Five minutes later and she’s herded them inside, ordering Dean into one bathroom while she cleans up Dad in the other. He sheds his layers, jacket then weapons then shirt, letting the clothes drop to the tile and setting the gun and knife carefully on top of the toilet.

The quiet throws him. He squints into the mirror, studying the damage. The cuts aren’t bad—nobody got eviscerated tonight—but these bruises are deep in the muscle, and they’ll be a bitch to get over.

Dean clutches one side of the sink. It’s been one hell of a day. He pulls a hand towel off a ring in the wall and holds it under the faucet. He’d kill for a shower, but there’s no time for that, he has to go check on Dad.

“Out,” Mindy snaps as soon as Dean appears in the doorway. Dad’s torso is bound with gauze, already spotted with blood. “You want to help, get some water boiling.” Dad meets Dean’s eyes, his expression dull and blank with pain.

Dean finds two huge mugs already set out on the kitchen table, tea eggs rolling at the bottoms. When he pours the hot water in, a rush of fragrance billows up to meet him. He can’t identify the scents, but something blooms in his head as they mix and mingle: _afternoon shade—birdsong—swaying heads of tall grass—sun on bare skin._ It catches in his throat, and he turns his face away.

He sits with Mindy and Dad, finishing the tea in her living room. Dad lists against the couch; Dean perches on the edge of an armchair. “You’ll need to check on some kids for us when we’re gone,” Dad says, his voice raw. “Dustin O’Leary and Tara Gilkyson. Got to make sure they’re okay now that ghost’s not in their heads anymore.”

“Do it yourself. You’ve got to rest,” says Mindy, teetering on the other side of the couch. “No way you’re fit to drive, either of you. You stay here tomorrow and get out when you’re able.”

Dad shakes his head. “That was state property back there. We can’t stick around right now, much less tomorrow.”

She glares at him. “Forget it. I put you on this job. Something happens to you on the road, that’s on my head.”

Dad lifts his chin. “We appreciate the sentiment,” he says quietly. “We’ve been out with worse.” Dean shifts in his seat, the cuts on his palms stinging against the heat of the mug.

Mindy narrows her eyes, every inch the nurse. “You’re peddling that macho hunter bullcrap at the wrong stand, pal. I know better.”

“Give your stuff a little credit.” Dad lifts the empty mug. “I feel better already.”

“Being full of painkillers helps.” Mindy leans back on one elbow. “You should be asleep. You both should.” She looks away, shaking her head. “John, I’m telling you, I’m _telling_ you, you’re both torn up bad. Everybody’s better off if you damn well listen to me here.”

“We’ll be fine,” Dad growls, setting his mug on the table. “Dean, how you doing?”

Dean takes in his expression, and Mindy’s. He’s too tired for this fight; he’s lost it too many times. He pushes himself to his feet. Dad smiles, and it’s not meant for him in the least, and Mindy isn’t fooled either. “You stubborn ass,” she growls, standing up. “I never seen anyone so determined to walk wounded in my whole life.”

Dad goes still, and Dean feels the muscles in his back seize up, because he hasn’t seen that look in almost a year, and he knows how Dad rises to meet a fight. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Dad asks, his eyes locked on hers.

“You heard me. Hey.” She points at him as he braces his arms on the cushions. “You stay down. There’s no shame in being hurt, John. Especially in a situation like this. Better to get well than stay injured.”

Dad holds her attention, and gets to his feet anyway. “You think this is a pride thing?” His face falters for half an instant, but he presses one hand to his side and stays standing. “I’m trying to protect you here. Police get a lead on us, you could be at risk. That does nobody any good.”

“Don’t talk at me like I don’t know what I’m into, John. I know hunters, I know what you do. Hell, cops could nail me on trespassing and desecration myself.” She folds her arms over her chest, which only lasts until her next gesticulation. “I’m talking about life and limb here. I’m talking about you not putting yourself and Dean in more danger!”

“My son and I are both grown men,” he retorts. “We know our limits. We haven’t hit them yet.”

Dean shuts his eyes. “Dad’s right,” he interrupts, before either can get another word in. “We can’t stay here, Mindy.”

“You got reason to be scared?” she snaps. “Anyone see you? Anyone got your prints? Did the APD take a break from busting college parties and chase you out of town? You want to hide anywhere in this county, this is the place to do it.”

“No,” Dean says, louder than Dad. He presses one fist against his thigh. “There’s nothing left to stay for.”

Dad nods at him, but watches Mindy. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The words hang in the living room, unfinished. Both Dad and Mindy frown at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Mindy take half a pace back.

“What was that tone there?” Dad asks, his gaze unwavering.

“You should thank me,” Dean says. “I did all the damn work on this one.” He can’t believe his own mouth, but he’s been ripped open today and it must be making him stupid.

Dad steps forward, his shoulders rolling as he tilts his head. “You don’t want to have this fight here and now.”

“How is this a fight?” He spreads his arms. “I was right and you were wrong. You got proof enough of that. It wasn’t your guy!”

A muscle near Dad’s eye twitches. “All right,” he huffs. “You want to duke this out? Where were your bright ideas three weeks ago? Suppose someone else got hurt—would all that time you wasted have been worth it then?”

He pushes a laugh through a sandpaper throat. “You want to talk wasted time? Tell me, Dad, did all those books help you in the end? Did you get that ghost any better because you knew some dead English weirdo’s life story?”

“I was following the leads we had,” he snaps, his voice rising. “Where were you?”

“I was everywhere you sent me!” Dean looks into his father’s face and sees him close to the wire, but it doesn’t stop him, it can’t. “I did your digging, I did your research, hell, I even tried to talk you sometimes, maybe you remember that. I got it all done, Dad, but God forbid you can’t see what I’m doing. We’d—”

The rage dries up, so suddenly Dean reels in the vacuum. Both Mindy and Dad are gaping at him. “We’d have all been better off if you’d just listened to me from the start,” he finishes, unable to look at either of them.

Dad stands there, something ashen in his face. The bloodstains on his t-shirt rise and fall over his chest. “You don’t have to be Sam for me, Dean.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Just one is all I need.”

Dean jerks his head up: his hands go limp at his sides. The whole house is holding its breath. “Jesus.” Dad stares back at him with hollow eyes.

“Nine months,” Dean says. “It took you nine months to say his name again.”

Mindy presses her knuckles to her mouth, too embarrassed to know where to look.

 

  **XXI. I got those west-running blues, oh. (Robert Plant)**

The rising sun blinds them in the rearview. Mist pools in the hills, blue and then white and then silvery as the day gets older.

Dean clears his throat. Athens is two hours behind them. “Hey Dad?”

“Hmm?”

He shifts in his seat. The leather creaks beneath him, close and familiar. He studies the rawness on the backs of his hands for a moment. “How long’s it been since we were west of the Rockies?”

Dad squints off at the middle distance. “Couple of months,” he says at last.

Dean glances down at the wheel. “Yeah.” A green mile marker blurs by, three could-be-anywhere towns flashing in white reflective lettering. The car is very quiet. “Point Pleasant.” Dean’s grip tightens. “Wasn’t the Mothman in Point Pleasant?”

“Not Ohio.” Dad’s voice is hardly more than a whisper. “West Virginia.”

Dean keeps his eyes on the road. “They ever figure out what the Mothman really was?”

Dad shakes his head once. “I’ve never heard a straight story about it.”

The state rolls by outside the windows. Dean doesn’t ask the next question. They nurse their hurts without the radio on.

The sun’s too bright for them to turn around. They can’t keep on not going west. So they drive.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the SPN/J2 Big Bang Challenge 2008. Check out [the amazing art by slodwick](http://slodwick.livejournal.com/995710.html)! [Notes on Athens, the Wall and William Blake](http://newredshoes.livejournal.com/646453.html).


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